


to build a home

by lullabyforstrings



Series: to build a home [1]
Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, F/M, Family, Kid!Fic, Mike Lawson is a Human Disaster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-09-11 21:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 23,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9027085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lullabyforstrings/pseuds/lullabyforstrings
Summary: In which Mike's daughter skips the All Star Game.





	1. March 2016

**Author's Note:**

> The timeline of this fic follows the season relatively closely. For this first chapter, it starts in Spring Training to Ginny's first week in the MLB. Since Mike's daughter doesn't live in California and he found out about her in the middle of the school year, he wanted her to stay in her hometown with her godparents. Once her summer vacation started, she would move in with him. He's initially excited, but then he realizes what the fuck is he going to do with a teenager? He doesn't know what he's doing, especially with a daughter.

“I have a kid.”

“Need nursery decorating tips?” Al asks without even looking. It’s like he expected it. Or at least had a bet with Buck that this would happen sooner or later to one of his ball players. Judging by the expression on his face, he lost that bet.

Oscar glares at him.

“What? At the rate he was going…” Al says with a shrug.

“I need high school suggestions, actually.”

“Excuse me?” Oscar balks.

“I was twenty-one when she was born,” Mike says as he leans back in the chair that feels like it’s been upholstered with leather-tinted glass. “She’s a sophomore in high school.”

“And you knew about this?” Oscar asks. He’s got the same hard expression on his face, the same one that he always has when Mike is going to cost him, and his boss, overtime pay to the PR staff.

“No,” Mike says with a frown. Oscar has to think more of him than that. 

“I’m obligated to ask, Mike,” Oscar says, his voice purposely lowering in the way it does when he has to put on his GM hat, not his ball player one. It makes Mike feel like he’s a child even though Oscar is only seven years his senior. “Just trying to get a better handle on this situation.”

“Does she have a boyfriend?” Al asks.

Mike can hear a crack as his head snaps towards his coach’s direction. “What?”

“Just asking,” Al says as he sips his coffee. “It’d be would be funny as hell if she did.”

“If she did Oscar would have to tell PR to find a way to get me off a murder charge.”

“I’ll tell PR to figure out a plan to keep this under wraps,” Oscar says as he stands up from where he’s been perched on his desk. “But Mike, someone will figure it out before you know it.”

“Not if I can help it.”

 

//

 

Their first meeting is tense. It’s too official, with lawyers and in a white office room that reminds them both too much of hospitals.

As she stands there, a little more than a foot behind Mike, half of her wants to wants to reach out to him, but the other half just wants to run away. The feeling is odd, considering she doesn’t have any memory of him. There’s a part of her that wants to think he didn’t know about her. Her mother was too strong a woman to admit she needed help, even when the bills became too much. She would rather drink vinegar than accept help until she needed it. Peyton always admired her mother’s independence, but at the same time, she’s unbelievably angry. Angry at the circumstances that orphaned her, at her mom for not accepting help sooner, for not contacting Mike, but at the same time, she doubts Mike would have even wanted her.

When her mother died, but she realized her father’s name was on the birth certificate, she had a tiny bit of hope. That her dad would welcome her with open arms, without conflict, but just the nature of his last name is already causing her problems.

She’s not an idiot--if she had the money her father--well, Mike at this point--has she wouldn’t trust a fifteen year old claiming parentage. But at the same time, his request for a paternity test also feels like a slap in the face before they’ve even met.

Peyton’s always prided herself on being an optimistic person, but even now she’s finding it hard to claw onto a little patch of sunshine.

She just wants her mom back.

Her father continues to sit there, sheltered in his chair and sandwiched between two lawyers. The room sits in silence except for the sound of him clearing his throat. Peyton bites her lip, quietly disgusted at the private, but public, nature of the scene. Even though she knew that his lawyers--multiple, most likely--were going to be there.

She remembers thinking back to the newspaper--a photo of him looking like he's about to cry after the Padres lost the Wild Card game. Peyton sneaks a glance at him now--his face is not full of sadness or resentment, but of nervousness.

She can only imagine her own face right now.

“How would you describe your relationship with your mother?” The lawyer asks.

Mike frowns, because how is that relevant to a paternity case? Isn’t bloodwork sufficient? He just wants to be out of here.

“Um,” The girl--his daughter, god that feels weird to say--looks down at her hands immediately. Her face contorts into a mixture of sadness and pain as she tries to find the right words to answer the question.

“Stop--”

“She’s obviously upset. Don’t...don’t do that,” Mike says, placing a calloused hand firmly down on the table. His eyes are drilled on his lawyers but out of the corner of his eye he can see Peyton’s eyes soften.

He doesn’t know what to do--does he go across the table and hug her? This...this isn’t his kid, he keeps telling himself, so he just sits there, frozen, with a tense silence poisoning the air.

“We’ll reconvene tomorrow,” his lawyer says as he shuts his leather bound notebook. “Test results should be in.”

One thing Mike knows is that he doesn’t know how to be a father, but he can’t get the kid’s sad expression out of his head that night.

 

//

 

The Padres get slaughtered in their home opener. By the third inning, Peyton is barely hoping for a win, she just wants the game to end without a double-digit scoreline.

“Just gotta forget about it and throw it in the bin. Next game’ll be better,” her father drawls as he swipes at his face with a bandaged hand.

She wonders how it would have been if she grew up with him; what it would be like to grow up with a dad who she saw more of on television than she did in person.

 

//

 

All the information Peyton learns about her dad is through the Internet.

It’s not a genuine way to get to know a person, scrolling through a Wikipedia page as she attempts to make up for lost time in the same way she would cram for an exam. But that’s not their relationship. Nothing about this is normal, and their relationship can’t really be called that. Peyton isn’t naïve enough to think that he sees her as anything more than a charity case that wants nothing more than to exploit him. The cynicism is there—perhaps too much for her own good—but she knows how this goes. People protect their money before they show compassion.

She reads past the stats, the list of awards, but she doesn’t find anything out about his family except that he had a single mom and moved around a lot.

 

//

 

Her father has an afternoon game the day she flies into San Diego, so he sends a car. She can’t help but wonder if he’d do the same if he was completely free.

“So you’re Mike’s cousin?” The driver asks. He must be a Padres intern who got roped into this, she figures.

“Yeah,” she says, half taken aback by the lie and relieved she didn’t have to tell the truth. A newfound paternity would change her life, but then again, the death of her mother already smashed the possibility of returning back to a normal life to pieces. ← this sentence is awkward, but I’m not sure I know how to fix it

 

//

 

“Yeah, so this is my place,” Mike says as he wanders into the living room.

“Nice painting,” Peyton stammers out as she glances over at the staircase where a painting of Mike—her father, embarrassed as she is to say it right now—hangs proudly at the top. She’s relieved to see Mike’s back to her, because she doesn’t know if she could hide her grin.

“Thanks,” Mike says.

Please say a fan gave it to you at least, Peyton thinks. Please, for the love of--

“Had it commissioned a year ago.”

Holy shit.

“Want to see your room?” He asks as he turns in the direction of the stairs.

“Sure?” Peyton replies. The way she sees it, there’s a ninety percent chance that it’ll have a princess bed. “It’s down the hall, right next to the bathroom. It’s a little small, but, uh, didn’t expect to have company when I bought this place after the divorce.”

She remembers reading that he was separated from his wife, but nothing about a divorce. A part of her wants to say something—maybe an apology—but what can she even say in this situation? 

“So yeah, it’s kind of small…” Mike says as he scratches the back of his head.

“Well, that’s not my definition of small,” she says as her eyebrows raise.

“Has a balcony, at least,” Mike says as he slowly moseys on over to the glass balcony. There’s a small cactus sitting awkwardly in the corner of the patio.

“I didn’t know what flowers you liked or if you were allergic to them or anything so, uh, I got you a cactus,” he says, pointing to it. “That has a flower. I don’t know if you can even be allergic to cactus flowers…”

Peyton can’t help but grin. “Thank you.”

“Your desk has a bunch of school supplies I thought you might need,” he says as he shuts the balcony door. “I can get more if you need it.”

Slowly, Peyton cracks open the desk drawer. There’s various notebooks, a pair of scissors, a set of pens and pencils, and a laptop?

“Um…”

“Tell me if you need another version for school.”

Since when do high schools require laptops?

“Look, Mike, I can’t accept this…”

“Of course you can,” he says, trying not to let the hurt in his voice bubble up. “Just consider it a school supply. It’s not a problem.”

She wouldn’t consider a two thousand dollar laptop to be a minor school supply, but okay. Instead of meeting his gaze, she looks down at the laptop, but before she can say thank you, Mike moves on.

“I’m making pasta for dinner. That sound good?” he says as he turns to walk towards the hall. “Or do you want to do takeout from somewhere?”

Peyton frowns, too tired to hide her confusion that he knows how to be an adult with basic skills like cooking, yet somehow has a painting of him hanging on his wall. “You know how to cook?”

“I’m not that much of a manchild,” Mike chuckles.

She plays on her phone as her dad makes dinner. There’s very few words spoken between them as pots and pans clang together. The only exception is when Mike asks her what she’s allergic to. They’ve logged a few hours of phone calls in the last couple weeks, phone calls that Peyton always ends early with the excuse that she has homework.

“I got tickets to go to the game tomorrow,” Mike says as they’re eating. She’s barely touched her food as she tries to process how her dad can eat that much.

“Actually, uh, I was thinking of unpacking tomorrow?” She says.

“Game’s at night. You’ll have plenty of time to unpack.”

“It’s just that…” Peyton begins. “I’m still kind of stuck on Central time, so a game that starts at 6:00 is 9:00 for me. I’ll be like a zombie by the seventh inning.”

“Oh,” Mike says. “Yeah, that’s, uh, a good point.”

“Do you think you’ll win?” She asks. She regrets it immediately when she realizes how dumb she sounds: Do you think you’ll win? Way to sound enthusiastic about your dad’s talent level, she thinks to herself.

She doesn’t know what to talk about other than baseball since, well, that’s what her dad’s day revolves around. A part of her wonders whether, even if she knew his stats forwards and backwards, he would want her to talk about his play. She wouldn’t want to seem more like a journalist than a daughter.

“Even if we don’t, nobody’ll be there to see it,” he says, not meeting her eyes as he stabs a meatball. “Attendance is shit this year.”

“Wouldn’t it pick up with school being over?” She asks, slightly taken aback by the honesty of his answer.

“That’s not gonna make us win,” he says as he wipes his mouth. He doesn’t have to lie to his kid. She’s not a reporter.

He probably already thinks she’s using him.

 

//

 

“Pey, wake up..”

“S’ too early…”

“It’s noon. You just moved from a city that’s three hours behind,” Mike says as he tugs at her foot. “It’s three in Chicago.”

“Still too early.”

“Want to go to lunch with Blip and Evelyn?”

Peyton cracks an eyelid. “Can I wear my pajamas?”

“Sure,” Mike replies. “Can you be ready in five minutes?”

“If I wear my pajamas, yeah.”

“Knock yourself out, kid.”

 

//

 

Peyton doesn’t think she’s seen a woman more put together than Evelyn. She also never thought she would regret wearing pajamas, but next to Evelyn, she feels like an ogre.

“So why are you just living in San Diego now?” One of the Sanders boys asks. She’s sandwiched in between the two, playing a round of FIFA.

“Um,” Peyton starts, but Blip rescues her before she has to explain.

“Hey, c’mon, boys. Food’s ready,” Blip says as he walks into the living room. “Mom made waffles.”

Without a word, the boys sprint to the kitchen.

“Sorry about that,” Blip says, a mixture of worry and sorrow in his voice. Peyton’s starting to think that his entrance wasn’t spontaneous.

“It’s fine,” Peyton replies as she stands up.

“So, do you think Ginny Baker will get called up?” She asks as she takes a bite of her waffle. Half of her feels like a gremlin in her pajamas and unbrushed hair as she sits next to Evelyn, the other half just wants a nap.

“I mean, she could,” Blip says as he twirls his spaghetti. It’s his game day food, apparently. Peyton doesn’t get how he can eat the same thing everyday. It’s not like baseball games are staggered, they’re playing more often than they’re not.

“Blip and Evelyn know her pretty well, actually,” Mike says through a mouthful of food.

“She’s actually a good friend of mine. Evelyn, too. Spent a year with her in the minors before I got called up.

“Do you think she’ll get called up in place of what’s his name?” Peyton asks.

Mike tries not to laugh at that.

“Potentially, yeah. We should know more today.”

 

//

 

“So, do you think really they’ll call Ginny up?”

“You want my honest answer?” He starts. There’s no point in lying to his kid. If she wants to learn more about the sport, he figures he shouldn’t sugarcoat his commentary. “Not really.”

He ignores Peyton’s look of disappointment.

“I mean, yeah, they might. She has one of the better ERAs in the minors right now. Thing is some might say Henrique is ahead of her,” Mike says. “Just matters if management wants to deal with the media shitstorm that calling her up would create.”

“Because she’s a girl?”

“Look, she’ll probably get a start or two. Most of the media will rip her apart and the media that doesn’t will get ripped apart for not shitting on her,” Mike says. “It’s hard to navigate all around. Front Office doesn’t want that headache, even if it means actually filling up a half empty Park.”

His kid has watched three ball games this year and the first thing she mentions to him about it are the attendance rates.

He doesn’t mind the criticism from the press. If he had a dollar for every time a fan said that they were an embarrassment to the city, he’d have enough to fund the last year of his contract, but none of that mattered as long as he knew he was giving it his all. The shit the media said, the shit the fans spewed over cable cords, it didn’t matter. He didn’t play the game to please people, he played the game because it was the only thing he knew how to do. It was there for him when he didn’t have anything.

The game is his home.

“You think she’s a gimmick?” Peyton asks. Her eyes are drilled on the road ahead of her, but Mike can sense the side-eye she’s giving him right now.

“Well, yeah,” Mike says. “Look, Pey. If it was meant to last, a woman would have been called up by now and stuck, but no one has, so most likely her story will be short.”

Peyton doesn’t say anything.

Sensing the tension, Mike presses on. “But it’ll be a hell of a story for her grandkids.”

 

//

 

A three game win streak turns into a three game losing streak. They’re stringing together consistent results, but most of them come in the form of losses.

“You want to go to the game tonight? It’s finally a night game,” he says. Once he grabs his keys, he slings his backpack over his shoulder as his shoulder creaks in protest. “The sun actually drops pretty far down at dusk over at the Park…you won’t feel like you’re burning.”

“Um,” she stammers. “I’m actually not feeling well, so I think it might be best if I take a raincheck…”

Like you have for the last five home games, Mike thinks.

“You need some aspirin or anything?”

“I’m fine,” Peyton stammers. “It’s just, uh, cramps?”

“O-oh.”

 

//

 

“Divisional game tomorrow,” Mike says as he hands her a plate of eggs. “Want to go? It’s at noon.”

“Sorry, I can’t,” she replies as she pokes at her eggs.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” Peyton starts. “It’s just that Tottenham plays Chelsea tomorrow at nine.”

Really?

Mike can’t help but raise his eyebrows. “That a big game or something?”

Peyton nods.

Mike shrugs. “Sure.”

 

//

 

“Who the fuck watches soccer?” Mike asks as he tosses his phone into his locker.

“The people who don’t watch baseball,” Blip replies.

Salvamini smirks. “So everyone under the age of 25.”

“Soccer’s fucking boring. It’s only because she thinks that Eden guy is hot,” Mike says as he pulls off his jersey.. He’s watched the last few games with Peyton, when he can, and likes to think he knows a little about the team beyond the fact that their mascot is cliché and Arsenal can go to hell.

“What kind of name is that?” Blip asks.

“Belgian,” Salvamini mumbles as he saunters off with a towel dangling off his shoulder.

“So she doesn’t want to come to a game?”

“She says it’s too hot.”

Blip snorts. “That’s gonna be the rest of the season.”

“Even if it’s true, I could get her in a box. This isn’t supposed to be hard,” Mike grumbles as he tosses his Under Armour undershirt into his duffle bag.

“Mike,” Blip says, voice low. “It’ll take her a bit to get comfortable. She found out her dad is captain for the Padres. It’s gonna be weird for her for a long time.”

 

//

 

“Is Peyton coming today?” Blip asks as they’re stretching.

After two weeks and six home games, Mike stops asking if she wants to come and watch. He leaves the tickets on the kitchen island each time, but usually comes home to find them untouched.

“I gave up hoping for that a week ago when we played the Nats,” Mike says with a smirk. “If I can’t convince her to come to see Bryce Harper’s abs, I can’t convince her to come to any game unless we make it to the fucking World Series.”

Even then she might not come, Mike thinks.

“Well, then you better look over at the bleachers.”

Mike whips his head around to see Peyton standing with Evelyn and the Sanders boys.

“That your kid?” Salvamini asks as he cocks his head towards them.

Mike nods.

“Damn, there really was no need for a paternity test.”

“Let’s go, man,” Blip says as he taps Mike on the shoulder.

“Good luck,” Peyton says with a soft smile.

Mike grins back. “Don’t need it.”

“Don’t look back, Mike,” Blip says once they jog off.

“What?” Mike asks. There better not be a fuckboy fan looking at his daughter.

Blip’s lips tighten. “Nothing.”

He doesn’t want his captain to see the name “Baker” written across his daughter’s back.

 

//

 

Sitting in the Family Room is one of Peyton’s least favorite things. Watching the players’ kids run around is fun, but only when she is able to ignore the awkward glances from some of the wives and staff members. The feeling around the room is that she’s an intruder, that she’s using her father for money, as if DNA tests are something you can fake.

“It’s fine, they all get like that when a new person is around,” Evelyn says as Peyton tucks herself onto the bar stool next to her.

Because they don’t expect them to stay, Peyton thinks.

She doesn’t know where she stands—she’s easily the eldest of the children, but also only five years younger than the youngest girlfriend; like a puzzle piece that was fucked up during the manufacturing process.

 

//

 

“So what happened out there?” Peyton asks halfway through the drive.

“Choked,” Mike says with a shrug.

“I mean, yeah, I would too under half the pressure she was under.”

“She’s a normal player. Just like all of the rookies in the MLB.”

Peyton frowns. She doesn’t know baseball, but maybe there’s something she’s missing here. “Did you have international media for your debut?”

“Not exactly, but I was drafted in the first round,” he says as he pulls into the driveway. “Had a lot of pressure with that.”

“Hey, I’m not saying you didn’t but it was a different kind,” Peyton says. She’s tiptoeing on ice at this point and she can feel it cracking.

“It’s the same pressure, Pey,” Mike replies. “You know you need to prove that your GM was right to call you up.”

Peyton thinks that’s bullshit, her dad always knew he would be called up, it was just a question of when, not if his biology would prevent him from doing so.

“But it’s less pressure if you have a dick.”

Mike cringes. “Okay, we’re outlawing the word dick from this household.”

“We’re actually in a car.”

“Okay, car and household. Or when I’m in the general vicinity,” he says as he turns off the engine and practically rips the key out of the ignition. “No dicks in general.”

“I thought you just said don’t say the word dick,” Peyton groans. She needs this conversation to stop now. Who would she even bone anyway? She knows nobody here, including her dad. He’s just a stranger despite the fact they have half the same blood.

“What? Just laying out ground rules,” he says with a shrug. “You can date when I’m dead.”

 

//

 

“You okay?” Mike asks as he sees his daughter hunched over by the kitchen island. “Why are you up this early?”

Peyton just nods, not moving her head from her lap.

“Rough night?” He jokes.

“I’m fine,” Peyton replies. “Just feeling kind of crappy.”

“Did you have the Fruit Loop hot dog last night at the Park last night? I had that once for a promotional commercial and I had the shits for a good week.”

Okay, first off, ew. She didn’t need to know that much about her dad.

“No,” she mumbles. “Uh, I just get really bad cramps.”

“Oh,” Mike stammers. “O-oh…do you need anything?”

“Sleep would be nice,” Peyton mumbles.

“I’ll leave you to that,” Mike says. “How about ice cream?”

“It’s five in the morning.”

“So?” Mike asks. Now’s not the time to be a responsible parent—a part of Mike knows he was never even qualified to be one. Ice cream for breakfast sounds appropriate at this time. “There’s a 24 hour drugstore ten minutes away. What flavor do you want?”

“Cookie dough, please.”

 

//

 

Ginny is going to kill whoever is calling her at five in the morning.

“Hey, Baker…” 

“Lawson, why are you calling me at five in the morning?”

“Why are there so many sizes of tampons?”

“What?”

Mike gives a frustrated sigh. “Look, just answer this for me, okay?”

“Is this a joke?”

“Look, I’m not playing around here. I’m desperate.”

“Did your one night stand’s period ruin your thousand dollar sheets?”

“First off, they’re Egyptian cotton and they’re only six hundred,” Mike says before he pauses. “And two…they’re actually for my kid.”

“Nice joke.”

“It’s not a joke.”

“It’s too early for this shit, Lawson.”

“I’m not playing around,” he says as he rubs a tired hand down his face. “I just found out about her in Spring Training. You can ask Blip if you don’t believe me. You saw her today, actually. She was with Evelyn and the kids.”

There’s a pause before Ginny responds. “I thought that was the boys’ new babysitter.”

“Look, Baker, can you just help me out here?”

“Do you know if she wears pads or tampons?”

“I’d prefer not to think about that, Rookie.”

“Then just get her pads.”

“Okay, but what size?”

“Just get her whatever.”

“What the fuck does extra-absorbent mean?”

“What do you think it means?” Ginny asks as she rubs her temples. What the hell is her life right now? “Do you not know what the word extra-absorbent means? Did you not graduate from middle school?”

“I know what the fucking word means I just don’t know…what it implies in, you know…this context,” Mike responds. “Okay, you know what? Don’t answer that.”

Thank god.

“Look, I have to get ready to go to the gym.”

Mike sighs as he plucks a pack off the shelf. “See you at the Park, Rookie.”


	2. The Interim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peyton looks up from her laptop where an Ebay page is open. “My dad doesn’t have superstitions, does he?”
> 
> Evelyn purses her lips. “Not that I know of.”
> 
> “The beard’s not a superstition or anything?” Peyton asks as she folds the last bits of her laundry into her duffle bag.
> 
> Evelyn snorts. “You’d hope it was, but it’s not. He’s been growing that thing for a year.”
> 
> She refrains from mentioning how Mike stumbled into their doorway nearly two years ago, duffle bag in his hand and his eyes bloodshot as he mumbled “Rachel cheated on me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Follows the timeline of The Interim with some modifications.
> 
> Warning: Minor mention of alcoholism. That's not something that will be explored beyond it being an idiot fan who mentions it.

// June 18th //

 

“What’s it gonna take for Arguella to trade Lawson?” The guy in the booth behind her says. Peyton freezes, looking over at Evelyn, who’s eyes are trained on her as if to say “don’t get involved.”

“Ignore it,” she says, but Addie watches her grip tighten around her fork. “It’s not worth it.” 

“I heard he’s got a problem with the bottle,” the guy says.

Peyton watches as a look of disbelief etches across Evelyn’s face. 

“Hey, that or his poor play will get him sooner or later,” the guy’s buddy says. He sounds older--voice gruff with age. She figures they work construction for a living--there’s a new building going up across the street. She doesn’t dare turn around--not because she thinks they’ll recognize her.

She doesn’t see the man’s face. She doesn’t want to remember his words.

“We know what he said isn’t true, Pey,” Evelyn says, shifting her purse higher onto her shoulder. Peyton can see her punctuate her statement with a nod, and a smile with the tiniest hint of pity.

“I know,” Peyton says with a sigh. She keeps her head down as she walks, counting the tiles in the sidewalk in an effort to calm herself down. She can feel her blood boiling.

“Just forget what they said,” Evelyn adds as they stop at the corner. “They don’t know anything.”

She nods, but she knows what he says is a lie. At this rate, there are journalists who know more about her father than her.

 

//

 

“You’ll have fun with Evelyn in LA,” Mike says as he parks in Petco’s stadium. “Dodgers have a nice stadium even though their uniforms are hideous.”

Peyton opens her mouth to point out that their logo’s font is no different than the Padres’ logo, but thinks better of it.

“I can get it,” Peyton says as Mike hoists her duffle bag onto his shoulder. She knows he’s been having back issues lately, she doesn’t want to make that any worse for him.

“I got it,” he says as he slams the back door shut.

“What’s there to see in LA?” 

Mike raises his eyebrows. “Well, celebrities, overpriced candy shops, juice cleanses, a bunch of famous white guys with too much airtime for how ugly they are.”

Peyton can’t help but laugh at that.

“Thanks again, Ev,” Mike says as he hands her off.

“I’m sorry you have to watch me. I’ve been trying to convince my dad that I don’t need a babysitter, but apparently that’s not happening anytime soon.”

“He just doesn’t want you to be alone in that house. It’s for safety reasons, if anything,” she replies. “By the way, I got you something!”

Peyton’s eyebrows raise. “Hm?” 

“Hopefully they fit, I guessed your size.”

Peyton blinks. There has to be at least thirty pounds worth of clothes in there. She doesn’t even want to look at the prices, she already feels sick. “Evelyn, y-you really didn’t have to.”

“It’s fine,” Evelyn says with a laugh. “Your dad bought ‘em. It’s his money. And believe me, you do not want your dad picking out clothes for you.”

 

//

 

He wonders where it all went to shit. When he went out with the guys too many times after too many losses instead of going home to see her. When he forgot the anniversary of when they first met a week before the Wild Card game, when he came home drunk after he lost the Wild Card game when his in-laws were visiting.

“What was our first dance to?” He asks, a part of him remembers, but the other part draws a complete blank. 

“Beauty and the Beast,” she responds, voice neutral in the situation. There’s not a trace of happiness in her voice like Mike hoped there would be.

“How could I forget?” Mike says as he slaps the photo album shut. “Look, would you cut Baker some slack with all over-the-top feminist stuff?”

He doesn’t even have to look to imagine Rachel roll her eyes. “The over-the-top feminist stuff?” 

Mike raises his eyebrows. “Is that not what it's called these days?”

Rachel smirks. After years of working in an industry where men had the voices that shouted the loudest, none of this surprises her anymore. “She's a big girl.”

Mike looks across the way into the dining room. He can see the photo-frames sitting on the shelf, there are photos of her nieces and nephews, a few of her parents, and none of them that used to adorn the shelf.

“So is that why I needed to be here when you came over? So you could tell me that?”

He lets out a pained sigh as he exhales. “My body's breaking down, Rach. I don't know how many years I've got left to play.”

“I don't know what I'm supposed to say to that.”

“Well, you said that baseball always came first, and you were tired of coming in second.”

“I’I know that's why you left, and I know that's why you had the affair. And I-I can't necessarily blame you. What if I called it a career? End of the season, maybe next? Would you take me back? 

“Mike…”

“I'm just tired of being a life coach to these 23-year-old boys. I'm tired of not having anyone to talk to at night,” he sighs before muttering out, “God, I miss you.”

“I'm engaged.”

He feels his stomach clinch. “T-to that guy?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh,” he says as he feels his hands start to shake. In an effort to save the little dignity he has left, he rubs one across his beard to hide the shaking.

“To David.”

“That's good.” He barely gets it out. He feels sick. “That's good. Boy, do I feel stupid.”

“No, don't.”

“You know what, I'm just gonna have a clubbie swing by later and pick up, um, some of these boxes, if that's cool,” he says as he takes a few steps back. He needs to get out of here

“Mike – No,” she tries to appease him, but he can’t hear her.

“He'll swing by later,” Mike says as he motions to the boxes. “Actually, he'll just take 'em all.”

“It was good to see you,” he says because it feels like the diplomatic thing to say. “I'm happy for you, Rach. This is good…this helps.” 

 

//

 

He swallows down his pride as he walks back into the locker-room, running himself ragged until he finds it in him to stop. His chest feels tight as he walks back to the locker-room, but he bottles it up as he starts tapping up his ankles.

The boys are more rowdy than normal, bickering their usual bullshit. Ignoring them only works for so long until he feels something in him break.

“Enough! Enough!” He yells as he beats on the side of his locker. “I’m so tired of this crap. I’m gonna be a 30-something retiree soon. Hell of a lot sooner than I’d like.”

“Love of my life is getting remarried, too. So, so much for a family,” he mumbles. He wants to include his daughter in that category, but she barely talks to him. She sure as hell doesn’t want him as her dad. 

“And you bickering idiots is all I have to show for it!”

“Our manager’s in trouble, guys. He could get canned any day,” he says as his voice shakes. “This is the same guy who takes the blame when we lose, when it’s us who plays Hacky Sack with the baseball.”

This is the only family he’s ever had—only consistent one, at least. When he tells the media that, it’s taken as purely captain jargon thing to say. Nothing more than a tired sports cliché, but he meant. He meant every word of it. If the public knew, it would be more pathetic than inspiring. 

“Yeah, same guy who didn’t just convince Stubbs’ ex not to sell their honeymoon pictures to a tabloid. He bought ‘em! All to protect his own player.”

“Is Ginny getting us more attention? Yeah, she is, man, which sucks, ‘cause we’re losing in front of sold-out crowds. So I got a radical idea, mooks. Hear me out here. How about we start winning in front of sold-out crowds? How about we start winning for Al and his job? How about you start winning for your captain, too? We’re gonna shock the world. And yeah, we’re gonna do it with a pretty girl in the dugout. Yeah, pretty girl, who, by the way, works a hell of a lot harder than you lazy losers. So maybe… we all start working as hard as her. Maybe we start acting like a team instead of a bunch of spoiled brats,” he says as he plops down onto his locker. 

“Then maybe I’ll feel lucky that you guys are all I have,” he grumbles as he looks into his locker, the 36 on his jersey glaring back at him. “For every last flickering minute of my damn career.”

 

//

 

“Am I seriously going to have to fucking drive to Chatsworth for this?”

Peyton looks up from her laptop where an Ebay page is open. “My dad doesn’t have superstitions, does he?”

Evelyn purses her lips. “Not that I know of.”

“The beard’s not a superstition or anything?” Peyton asks as she folds the last bits of her laundry into her duffle bag. 

Evelyn snorts. “You’d hope it was, but it’s not. He’s been growing that thing for a year.”

She refrains from mentioning how Mike stumbled into their doorway nearly two years ago, duffle bag in his hand and his eyes bloodshot as he mumbled “Rachel cheated on me.”

“Hey Ev, can I ask a question?”

“Why’d he get divorced?”

“They just didn’t see things the same way anymore,” she says. It’s not the whole truth, but it’ll work, she figures. 

Peyton bites down on her lip as she nods. That’s a nice euphemism for he cheated on her, she thinks. She wishes people wouldn’t lie to her. She’s old enough to know that people cheat, especially in professional sports. 

“So is his beard, like a sadness beard or something?”

Evelyn hesitates. It definitely is. She doesn’t know if he thinks he’s trying to copy Jake Arrieta (because there’s no way the beard attracts the women he brings home, the money does) or if he is still so devastated he forgets to shave. When he first showed up at Spring Training with the beard and an extra ten pounds the season after Rachel left him, she assumed it was the second.

Before she can reply, Peyton’s phone rings.

“I should get that,” she says as she cocks her head in the direction of the phone.

Evelyn nods as she turns her attention to the television set. Outside Bounds with Rachel is on, but she quickly flips to CNN. She knows what separated them didn’t fix the problem since their split only made Mike burry himself in baseball, seemingly a different woman each night, but with his age, she knows that he can’t do that anymore. His body won’t let baseball be an option anymore.

“Hey, you still with Evelyn?” Mike asks, not even bothering to say hello. “I just stopped by your room and you’re not there.”

“Yeah, uh, just give me a minute,” Peyton says as she stands up. 

“Your dad?” Evelyn asks, barely looking up from her phone. 

“Mhm.”

“Thanks for finding the shirt again, Pey.”

Peyton shrugs. “No problem…it’s the least I could do.”

 

//

 

“Hey,” she says as she spots her dad in the hall, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Maybe it’s the crappy lighting, but she’s never realized how older her dad looks than his thirty-six years say he is.

“Hey,” he says, voice a little rough. “Sorry, I, uh, cancelled dinner. I just had to take care of some business. I brought you a burger if you hadn’t eaten.”

“Evelyn ordered room service, but thanks,” Peyton says as she peers down at the take-out container in her hands. “Sorry about the game today.”  
The Padres haven’t had a winning season in years, she should get used to saying that to her father.

“’S fine,” her father says with a heavy sigh. He doesn’t even try to give her the usual “we’ll-get-em-next-time smile.” It’s a lost cause.

“I should turn in for the night.”

“Yeah, uh, I was just getting in,” she says. She notices her dad’s red eyes. “Hey, are you okay, Mike?”

He wants to say yes, but he knows she doesn’t need that burden right now.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he grumbles. He looks defeated more than usual, but then again, his job isn’t exactly making his life easy right now. “Should get back to my floor.”

“Good luck tomorrow,” she says with a small nod. 

Mike’s starting to hate how often she says that to him other than “good night” or “I love you.” She hasn’t said that to him since she got to San Diego.

“Thanks.”

“Love you,” he says after she shuts her hotel room door. 

 

// June 19th, 2016 //

 

“How’s Peyton?” Al asks as Mike lowers himself down in his skip’s chair. Even on the road, he still has his mini-fridge stocked with beer and photos of his grandkids on his desk.

Mike caves in because he can’t take it anymore. 

“She calls me Mike.”

“Well, she just found out about you.”

“I didn’t do anything to her. I don’t get why she hates me. She doesn’t go to games, she stays in her room.”

“Sounds like a typical teenager,” Al says as he reaches for a beer.

“She doesn’t talk to me, Al.”

“She’s fifteen. Of course she doesn’t want to talk to you,” he says. “Look, give it some time.”

“It’s not that. She doesn’t not want to talk to me because she’s a teenager, she doesn’t want to talk to me because she doesn’t want me as her dad.”

“I’m sure it’s not like that, Mike,” Al says. “Raising a daughter is hard, I’ll admit that. And I had my wife to help, but you're going to be so proud, but also scared and happy for the rest of your life.”

“I thought,” he starts. “I thought maybe Peyton would be more comfortable with a female figure in her life, but guess that planned got run over. Turns out Rachel’s engaged.”

“Jesus,” Al says as he rubs his hand over his temple.

“Come over for dinner.”

“Thought you didn’t do those anymore.”

“Might as well start them back up,” Al says with a shrug. He doesn’t need to say that it might be his last week in San Diego. His captain’s heard the rumours.

“We’ll be there.”

 

// June 20th, 2016 //

 

“So what did Peyton get you for Father’s Day?” Ginny says as she plops down on Blip’s locker. “A cane? Joint medication?”

“Nah,” Mike lies. “Book of dad jokes.”

When he shuffled out of the house in the morning, she wasn’t even awake. He wasn’t going to wake her up—hell, he even forgot it was Father’s Day before Blip’s two boys tackling their father with a hug before they boarded the bus to LA jogged his memory. 

“Couple of the guys and I are going to Charlie’s tonight. Want to come?”

“You’re not going out with Peyton?”

“I wouldn’t exactly be the greatest dad of the year if I took her to a bar,” Mike says, cocking his head to the side. “Press would eat that shit up.”

“You know what I mean,” she says. “She coming to the game today?

“No,” Mike says as he flicks his phone on to give him something to look at. “Said she was tired.”

“Is everything okay with you two?” Ginny asks.

Yeah, just fucking great, Baker, he thinks, she’s spoken thirty words to me this week and half of them were “yes” or “no.”

“Mike?”

“Yeah, things are fine,” he answers, a little too hastily for her to buy the lie, but she doesn’t push further. 

“So you coming or not, rook?”

 

//

 

He doesn’t mean to bring up what day it is to Baker, because he knows the topic of fathers isn’t exactly pleasant for her, but the alcohol overrules that promise he made to himself. 

“Who the fuck thought of Father’s Day anyway?” Mike asks as he plops his card on the bar. “Like, what do dads do? Aggressively yell at their kids’ little league coach? You get a whole day for that? Moms carry you for nine months, then shit you out. They deserve a month.”

“You do know that…”

“I know, I know, Baker,” he grumbles. “A baby actually doesn’t come out of your ass. It comes—“

“Actually, I was gonna say that there is a women’s history month.”

“Oh,” Mike says as he finishes the rest of his beer. “Didn’t know that.”

Ginny smiles. “Didn’t expect you to.”

They wait at the bar for the bartender to swipe Mike’s card. It’s half past eleven on a Tuesday so the bar is deserted except for the two of them. They’d hike it out of there, but Mike forgot to grab cash before he left his place. Neither of them looked like they wanted to go back to their homes any time soon, content to drown their sorrows in liquor, so the bartender took advantage of it to go downstairs doing inventory.

“I thought having Peyton would make Rachel take me back,”

“I thought she wanted to get back with you,”

Mike huffs out a laugh. “Not even close, I wanted her back. It was my fault she had the affair and it’s my fault that I’m such a fuck up…”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yeah, I am,” he says, voice gruff. “My wife won’t take me back, my kid looks like she would rather stab herself in the foot than talk to me most days, and the one fucking thing I’ve ever been good at my body isn’t letting me do anymore.”

“Mike…”

“Can I get you two anything else?” The bartender interrupts.

“No, we’ll have the bill,” Ginny says as she looks down at her captain.

“I haven’t even talked to Peyton today,” Mike says through his arm. “She probably forgot it was Father’s Day, can’t fucking blame her.”

But there was a small part of him that saw the guys who had kids and felt the pang of jealousy. The ones who would walk off the bus and instead of ducking their head and heading towards their cars were met with a mini-them who would run and jump up at them even if they just came back from the worst losing streak of their life.

“My Uber will be here soon, rook. I’ll see you back at the stadium tomorrow mornin’,” he says as he stumbles off the bar stool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Initially, I thought I'd mold two episodes into one chapter, but might as well just take it one by one. As I said, this one is based off The Interim. The part about Mike showing up like a lost puppy on the Sanders' doorsteps the night he walked in on Rachel cheating on him is a pretty well accepted headcanon from Tumblr so all the credit to them and the initial poster.
> 
> Thank you for all the comments! Next chapter should be up in a few days.


	3. Beanball

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a note, this chapter follows the events of Beanball with the exception of Mike having a relationship with Amelia. Amelia is still a character in this universe, but just not involved with Mike. Having a teenager in your glass house doesn't spell well for your dating prospects. Mike still drowns his pain in women, but not at the same rate and in such a public manner once Peyton comes into his life. I imagine him taking home women on the road, but not in San Diego.

// July 2nd, 2016 //

 

“Lawson, don’t hurt yourself. Ownership’ll really can me for that,” Al says, lightly slapping him on the back of the head as his captain struggles through dicing tomatos.

“You sure you guys don’t need help with anything?” Peyton asks as she leans over her spot on the kitchen bar.

“Not unless your dad cuts his finger off,” Al responds as he tosses a handful of carrots into the frying pan.

“So how many people are coming over?”

“My one daughter got called in for a late night shift, she works over at the Dormund’s Children Hospital,” he says as he chops the last bit of carrot. “But the others are coming over in the next half hour. I invited Baker, too.”

Peyton watches as her dad’s brow furrows.“Huh?”

Al shrugs. “Rookie dinner.”

“On a Sunday night with your family?” Mike asks. He and Al host their annual rookie dinners. They’re always in September, not June.

“I combined both this year. Cooking takes more effort now for your old fart of a manager,” he says as the doorbell rings. “Must be her.”

“I’ll get it,” Peyton says as she jumps off the bar stool.

“Hey,” she says. Ginny looks tired, which isn’t exactly surprising after the past month she’s had, but her hair is combed and the dark jeans, black tank, and leather jacket tell that she didn’t just roll out of bed.

“Hey,” Ginny says as she steps forward into the hall. “Peyton, right?”

“Mhm,” she says through a tight-lipped smile. 

“Rookie!” Mike says as he walks down the hallway, hands deep in his back pockets. Peyton tries not to laugh, he’s puffing his chest out. “Al didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“Yeah, he invited me an hour ago. Voorhies and Dahlbeck couldn’t come, they said they were busy.”

“Oh,” Peyton watches as her dad’s eyes change. There’s something there, but she doesn’t know what.

“Baker,” Al says as he mozies down the hall. “Dinner’s cookin’. Want to play cards with me and the kid? I’m teaching her how to fleece her dad in poker.”

Ginny snorts as she bumps Mike on the shoulder. 

“Already a bad influence on my kid,” Mike says with a laugh as he tries to ignore how his hand grazes her thigh when she passes him in the hallway.

 

//

 

The dinner is not as awkward as he thought it would be. Most of the conversation revolves around the topic of kids; Al’s youngest grandbaby is starting preschool in September, asks Peyton about her favorite sports, TV shows.

“You like Breaking Bad?” Al asks.

Mike almost chokes on his chicken. “You watch that?”

“Yeah,” Peyton responds with a shrug. “I’m fifteen.”

The night ends with Peyton playing a round of Mario Kart with Al’s other grandchildren. Maybe it’s the cumulation of the week’s games, maybe it’s the aches he feels in his bones, maybe it’s the realization that Peyton looks happier than she has in weeks in his coach’s home than she does at her father’s that has him escape outside for some air. 

Maybe he’s just not cut out for this. How the hell did he think he’d manage being a good dad when his mother’s finest moments were microwaveable dinners and video games bought with stolen money.

“You okay?” 

Mike jumps a bit. “Yeah...probably should be asking you that. Quite a hell of a last two weeks for you, Baker.”

Ginny shrugs, but Mike knows it’s a facade. “I’m dealing,” she replies before throwing the ball back in his court. “Good thing Peyton didn’t inherit your personality.”

“That’s because I didn’t raise her,” Mike says as he looks back at Al hunched over a round of cards on the coffee table, Peyton adjacent to him. Must be teaching her how to fleece her dad in poker.

“You don’t honestly blame yourself for that, do you? If you didn’t know, you didn’t know,” he can hear his rookie’s voice soften. It’s pity more than anything, but it doesn’t do anything to lessen the guilt he feels.

“I should get her home. Traffic’ll be brutal,” Mike says before Ginny grabs his wrist.

“She knows you care, Mike.”

“Doubt that,” Mike says as he shakes her off.

 

//

 

“I thought you were in the bleachers today?” Evelyn asks.

“Too humid out there,” Peyton says as she plops her bag onto the bar. “Couldn’t stand it.”

The humidity index is as low as has been in three weeks, but she’d rather sit in the Family Room than listening to the women seated behind her discuss how big they think her father’s dick is. She’d rather listen to screaming children and skeptical looks from wives than sit through nine innings of listening to fans gushing about her dad.

“Since when do they have FIFA here?”

“They have Call of Duty sometimes,”

“Hey, Evelyn!”

“Oscar…”

“I’m sorry to ask you this, but could you watch my daughter for a bit?”

“I can do it,” Peyotn pipes up. Judging by the margarita in Evelyn’s hand, she was planning on not watching any kids tonight.

“Would you?” Oscar asks as he squeezes her shoulder.

 

//

 

“So who are you?”

“Mike’s cousin,” Peyton replies. The lie’s held up for long enough, but she knows eventually a dam will break. Just a question of when at this point, she figures. A part of her is starting to ask why her relation to her father was something he wanted kept secret in the first place. People always told her she is too cnyical for her own good, but she's starting to think keeping her identity out of the public eye is more for her dad's sake than her own protection.

“Oh, he’s batting .275 right now," Dnaiella says as she looks at the Jumbotron.

Peyton blinks. “Is that good?” 

“Um,” she starts. “It’s been higher.”

Ah, childhood honesty.

“Why’d it go down? Just old age?” Peyton asks. Part of her wants that to be true, because the other option is because of her.

Daniella shrugs. “I guess. Sometimes players age faster than others,” she says before adding. “His OPS (On-Base Plus Slugging) is cool, though.”

OPS? She doesn’t even know what his batting average is. How is she supposed to know what OPS means?

“What does that…?”

“So OPS adds on-base and slugging percentages and has been widely used, it can easily be affected by where a hitter plays his home games. For example, a player who plays in Coors Field in Colorado where it’s super windy has an advantage over a player who plays in Seattle, cos’ the weather’s different and it affects the player.”

Peyton leans back in her chair as she takes in the sights around her. Most of the wives and girlfriends are sipping their drinks as their children run around. God, she feels bad for whatever intern got stuck with the task of watching them. The fifth inning flies by, but her headache has only grown by then.

“Whoa,” Daniella whispers as the Cardinals’ pitcher’s bomb comes dangerously close to Blip. Peyton had been paying more attention to her phone, but the sound of the stadium erupting in boos catch her attention.

“What the hell? That was on purpose!” She hears Evelyn yell.

Peyton leans down to Daniella. “Can he get tossed for that?”

“He’ll just get a warning,” Daniella says.

"Kick his ass, Ginny!" Evelyn hollers as Peyton covers the seven-year-old's ears.

“So do you come here a lot?” Daniella asks as they mozy back onto their table once the inning is over.

“Um, no, not until a few weeks ago,” Peyton says through a mouthful of chocolate. It says too much about her life right now that there’s a seven-year-old whose plate is currently piled with fruits and vegetables while she’s hoarding brownies.

“Yeah, I don’t much, too,” Daniella replies as she pokes at the ranch dressing with her carrot. “At least not anymore.”

“You had school?”

“Well, I live in El Segundo with my mom now,” she says as she fiddles with the skin of her cucumber.

“Oh,” she replies. “I thought your dad lived in a condo around here…”

Evelyn lowers her gaze at her.

“I-I don’t live with my dad anymore.”

“Oh,” Peyton stammers. There’s no need to press further in that conversation, she can assume that this isn’t a topic the little girl in front of her doesn’t want to talk about.

 

//

 

“Thanks for taking care of Daniella, Peyton,” Mike says as he looks back at Oscar and his daughter.

“No problem, Oscar’s daughter is really sweet,” she says through a thin-lipped smile.

“Don’t feel like you’re obligated to babysit, you know?” Mike says as he jams his hands in his back pockets. “It’s your summer break. You should be having fun, not watching a bunch of kids run around.”

Peyton shrugs. “Daniella was fine.”

It’s not like I have friends here to do anything with, she thinks, but holds her tongue.

“So I have a charity event about forty minutes north of here. I can have a clubbie drive you home or you could come up with me? I can drop you off at a Starbucks for a bit. It won’t take more than two hours. Just an autograph signing and those things usually take like, two hours. The security guys move the line along pretty fast.”

“Sure,” she says.

 

//

 

She owes a lot to books. It’s a debt she’s comfortable with, one that will never come seeking her. Books had provided friendship when she had no real friends at home or at school as a young child, something that she thought she had grown out of, but now seeks solace in San Diego.

Between her mother’s double shifts on Hubbard Street, she’s become an expert in killing time. It’s not given her the most health habits--she started drinking coffee from the time she was in eigth grade--but she can churn out an essay in one hour, finish a book in two, and find multiple ways of avoiding math homework by lurking through Wikipedia or the latest book she found in the free book bin at the used book store by her school.

Her mom took the opening shifts during December. On Fridays, she’d always get slammed with coworkers going out for Happy Hour. In a restaurant district sandwiched between law firms and the business district, she always came home happy. Those were the longer nights for Peyton, but she took solace in the snow. She peered out at the frozen river as the snow would fall. It was like a kind of haven, or maybe a snow globe. Everything felt motionless when she sat there, she didn't have to worry about her next assignment, or the lack of tip money flowing in from her mother's second job. She felt like things were--or at least could be---perfect.

 

//

 

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Mike says as they pull out of the Starbucks.

“It’s not a problem,” Peyton says, not dragging her gaze off her phone.

“Traffic’s still pretty jammed up. Gonna be a long drive.”

Traffic isn’t that bad, but Peyton doesn’t know that. He takes the sidestreets to make a stop he knows he shouldn’t be making. 

So he doesn’t know how he winds up driving out of his way to go to Orchard Street. Looking over at Peyton, he pulls over at the side of the road, but not without hesitation. He knows it won’t be different this time, he knows it probably never will, but having his daughter next to him, a part of him thinks it will be.

“That house belong to someone you know?” Peyton asks, breaking the silence as the car slows down. His gaze is drilled on the Ponway house, it’s only her voice that shatters his thoughts.

It’s nothing something he wants to admit, but the stop is fifth time in two years. After Rachel divorced him, after too many beers and swallowed sorrow, he piled into an Uber and fished out his father’s address from his phone. Bile boiling in his stomach, he managed not to throw up all the alcohol sitting in his stomach, but all the courage he managed to drunkenly work up evaporated when he saw his father in the window, tossing a grandkid--his niece--up in the air. 

“Uh, no. Just, uh, a former coach of mine,” he says, breaking out of his trance. This was a bad idea, he shouldn’t have brought her here.

“Why don’t you say hi?” She asks, voice soft and innocent.

Mike tries not to scoff as he puts the car into drive.

“Probably doesn’t remember me.”

 

//

 

“Are you happy here, Peyton?” Mike asks as he tosses his wallet onto the kitchen counter. Peyton's in the fridge grabbing a bottle of water so he can't see her face, he doesn't know if he wants to.

“Yeah,” she says, but not without hesitation. The words feel manufactured; they’re in the same tone of voice she uses when she says that she isn’t feeling up for a game tonight. The pause tells Mike all he needs to know. He knows she isn’t happy in San Diego, that she’d give up knowing who her dad was if she could have her mom back.

“I’m gonna turn in for the night,” he says as he feels his knees creak when he stands up. “Sleep well, kid.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Work is not betaed so all mistakes are my own.


	4. The Break

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, two updates in three days! I'm actually productive for once. 
> 
> As a lot of you pointed in the comments, Peyton is very wary of Mike. She's cynical for her age--to her own fault--and assumes that Mike doesn't want her and is only taking her in out of obligation. That mentality is even more apparent in this chapter, but Peyton is too timid to ask Mike about it since well, it's not exactly a conversation you want to have over dinner.
> 
> Fluffier times are coming, though.

// July 1st, 2016 //

 

“Morning,” Mike says as he pours her a mug of coffee. He’s probably not getting parental points for this, but hey, his kid likes coffee.

“What’s this?” Peyton whispers once she catches sight of the plane tickets sitting on top of the kitchen counter.

“I know you’ve been missing your friends lately,” he starts. “And once September rolls around, you won’t be able to see them all that much so I figured you should pay ‘em a visit.”

Peyton looks like she wants to protest, say it’s too much money, but Mike continues before he can stop her. “It’s not a problem, Peyton. I have enough frequent flyer miles to fly to the fucking moon. The ticket cost basically nothing.”

“Mike—”

“Go have fun with your friends. Seriously.”

 

//

 

“Glad to see you back,” Alex says as he bumps her baseball hat. 

“Well, that’s what’ll happen when your dad wants to have sex with half of San Diego,” Peyton replies with a shrug.

“Does he bring women round there with you around?” Alex asks as he leans back onto the bar stool. “I mean, on one hand I respect a man who can get around that much, but it’s not the greatest look with a kid in the same house,” he says through a laugh. Peyton knows Alecx; it’s always the same with him. He’s like her; he uses humour as a shield.

“It’s that bad?”

“He just,” she says before taking a breath. “I know he must think of me as a burden. I mean, who wouldn’t? I wouldn’t want a kid dropped off on my door.”

“He probably doesn’t think like that--”

“Then why’d he ask for a paternity test?”

“For legal reasons,” Alec says as he sits down on the couch next to her.  
“Wouldn’t you?”

Peyton bites down on her lip. The truth is she would and she fully expected her dad to do it, as a precaution, if anything, but she didn’t expect him to not go out in public with her. 

She’s starting to think he never wanted her at all.

 

// July 6th, 2016 //

 

The Padres win a few while she’s gone, a string of one run victories that confuse the media enough to have one half saying they’re playoff bound and the other saying the close scores are indicative of a bunch of players barely pulling wins out of their asses when they could be winning by five runs.

“Hey, um,” she starts, awkwardly. “I looked online and it says I could push my return flight back to a later date.”

“Mhm,” Mike says, still half-asleep.

“So would you mind if I did that? I mean, my friend Isabelle’s birthday is coming up and I figured with you being injured and all…”

“Ah,” Mike starts.

“I just figured with your injury and all it wouldn’t matter.”

Mike swallows the lump in his throat, but his voice is shaky. “Y-yeah, it’s fine. Go have fun with your friends.”

“Are you sure?”

He wants to say no, that this is the last thing he wants. That he’s made the All-Star Team ten times, but never once has he had an ember of his family there. He thought it would be this year that maybe for once--just for once--he’d have someone in his seats that meant more than to him than just a one night stand.

Mike knows she’s not a baseball fan, but she watches sports. She...she gets it. She knows the significance of this game to him. She knows he’s running out of time. She sees it everyday in the athletic tape that weaves up his legs, the way his joints crack when he gets up from the couch, the way his back tightens when he gets out of the car, in the way she asks if he’s okay and in the way his voice is clearly spouting a lie. 

“Yeah, have fun with your friends.”

 

//

 

“You want me to come?” 

It’s on a whim, but he doesn’t have anyone waiting for him at home and he doesn't want to be alone tonight. “I’m great with Moms.”

“Really?” she says, sounding genuinely relieved for the first time in weeks. 

“Yeah, no problem. I have some broadcasting prep work I need to go over, but I can grab a quick bite.”

“That’d be amazing, thank you,” she says. “Do you want Peyton to come? I’ll make a reservation for six...Amelia, my agent, she’s coming as well.”

“She’s, uh, in Chicago,” he says.

“I thought she was coming back--”

“She’s taking a later flight. Had a friend’s birthday or something.”

“Mike…” 

He tries to ignore the way Mike rolls off her tongue. 

“No, no, it’s fine. I’m not playing anyway so she should hang out with her friends.”

 

//

 

“So we have a problem,” Alex says as he slides his phone over to her.

“He’s prettier than you?” Peyton grins as she looks down at the dark haired, dimple-faced player on her best friend’s phone.

“That may be your father’s replacement,” Alex says as he slips into the booth. “Rumour has it the Padres are trying to sign him.”

“Doesn’t mean they will.”

“Doesn’t mean they won’t.”

“Fuck,” she says through a sigh. Her dad only has baseball. He can’t lose that.

“But you’re right,” Alex says. “Padres are poor as fuck. They might not be able to swing whatever another team could pay. Your dad didn’t say anything about him being traded, did he?”

Peyton rolls her eyes, because if he did, Alex probably would’ve been the first person she called.

“Let’s just watch the game,” he says as he settles down in the townie bar. They shouldn’t be here, but neither was she supposed to when she was five years old and coloring on the booth while she waited for mom to finish night shifts. 

Peyton tries to ignore the anxiety bubbling in her stomach as the innings go on. By the time Ginny gives up a bomb to Perez, she’s half-considering asking the owner if he could sneak her a drink. 

“Can we leave?” Peyton asks. 

“Your dad’s commentating, isn’t he? Wait ‘til the seventh.”

Sometimes she wishes her dad had a real job. The other part of her knows she has no grounds to complain. Her dad’s doing what he loves and getting paid millions of dollars--starter or not--to do it.

“ You know, I was getting dressed in the locker room, trying to commit all these essential facts to memory, and I, uh, and I saw her give up that home run, and all I could think of was, God, this game is hard. I mean, it is so humbling. I mean, even those of us who are All-Stars, we fail so much of the time. I mean, great hitters fail seven out of every ten times at bat. There's such a fine line between being too inside your head and not having your head in the game enough. There's just no margin for error. You know? And yeah, she...she left one over the plate, and a great hitter got ahold of it. And now there's gonna be even more talk about how she never deserved to be here in the first place. But let me tell you something, this girl this woman Is a gamer. She's a total gamer. Doesn't matter what you throw at her, she gets back up. Hell of a lot stronger than I am, that's for sure.”

“Damn…” Alex mumbles.

“That’s not what he thought at first,” Peyton says as she crosses her arms.

“Mike, I wanna get your thoughts on this, because our Ken Rosenthal is reporting that the Padres have signed Cuban defector Livan Duarte.”

“Oh, shit,” Alex mumbles as Peyton straightens up. 

“Yeah, that guy’s not taking my job.”

 

//

 

When Peyton shuffles into the kitchen, duffle bag in hand, she finds her dad sprawled out on the couch, clad in grey sweats and an Under Armor shirt. An opened beer bottle sits tall on the glass coffee table and a few on the floor. As she walks closer, she can see an inkling of dried drool on the side of his beard. His phone is on top of his face, he must have fallen asleep talking to someone.

He looks more tired than normal so she snaps a quick photo for blackmail purposes before she plucks his phone off his stomach. 

As she walks over to the kitchen, she flicks his phone on. It’s frozen, with the remainder of a finished call from Ginny on the screen. She can’t help but notice the time, her father was called at midnight and they finished a little after one. Her brow furrows, but she ignores it as she pulls out a few pieces of toast.

“Hey,” Mike says, blinking away the sleep in his eyes. “I thought you were…?” 

Fuck, he didn’t forget her flight, did he? He thought for sure she was coming back tomorrow--

“I got on a standby flight,” she says as she grinds pepper onto his toast. 

“These for me?” Her father says through a grin.

“Yup,” Peyton says as she pulls a bottle of honey from the bottom drawer.

“How’s your back feel?”

“Could be better,” Mike says with a huff. The way he’s hunched over the kitchen island tells a different story.

“What do you want to do today? Got the day off.”

“What’s the name of that guy you were grumbling about? Ben Burns?”

“Ken Burns? You wanna watch documentaries?”

Peyton nods. “Yeah.”

“Sure, maybe sushi for lunch before? I know a good place downtown,” he says. “We could have real sushi for a change.”

“Hey, Chicago sushi isn’t that bad.”

“Yeah, because imitation crab is crap wherever you go,” he says through a laugh.

“It is a really nice city,” Mike says through a bite of avocado toast. “I’ll take you around today.”

 

//

 

“Hey Kaori,” Mike says as he “Usual spot?”

“No carry out today?” The hostess asks as she plucks two menus from the desk.

“Nope,” Mike says as he sits down. Peyton doesn’t miss the small, but pained grunt he lets out as his knees bend.

She lets Mike order since he knows what’s good here and hell, they’ve ordered carry out from here enough that he knows what she likes.   
The time passes by with comfortable conversation about how her friends are doing, she tries her best to ask about the All-Star Game, but whenever she tries to form the words, she chickens out. She knows she should’ve gone, that the tone of her dad’s voice when he okayed her staying in Chicago for a few extra days said it all. She just didn’t want to hear it.

“Hey, Mike,” she says once the waiter sets down their food and skips off.

“You’re not going to get traded, are you?”

“No. I got a no trade clause,” he says through a clump of sashimi before placing a heavy hand on her back. “You don’t have to worry about that, sweetheart. It’s not your job to worry about stuff like that, okay?”

Peyton nods, but his words feel hollow.

“Ken Burns time?” He asks with a smile. 

“Sure.”

 

//

 

“Hey Peyton,” he says halfway through the documentary. By now, the sun’s starting to set. “Did you ever think about who your dad was, you know, growing up?”

He wishes it turned out differently--that he found a way to co-parent her during his first few years in the bigs. He wishes he could have come home to a kid that would love him unconditionally win or lose. To be able to look at her and have proof that he’s good at something other than baseball. To be able to see that something’s right in his life.

Now, he only has a declining career and a daughter who resents him.

“Why?”

“Just wondering.”

“I mean, not really...I didn’t need one. My mom was fine on her own,” Peyton says. And it’s the truth, it’s just not what Mike wanted to hear.

“I should probably turn in early tonight. Have to be a Petco early tomorrow. Kiki’s working on my back,” he says as he grabs his phone from the coffee table.

“Dad, that’s--that’s not to say I didn’t...” she starts, but he’s already too far down the hallway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> This chapter is not edited so all mistakes are my own (and I'm sure there a bunch of them).


	5. Alfonso Guzman Chavez

They get fucking mauled by the Diamondbacks 11-3. He almost goes out with Sunny after the game, but when he sees Peyton’s text that simply reads “I’m sorry,” he decides needs to see her.

The drive home feels longer than he’s used to. These past few weeks, he’s been taking the long way home to stall for time. It’s not that he doesn’t want to see his kid...it’s just that...he can’t stand the silence between them. The curt texts, the nods and forced smiles feel too much to bear. He wants nothing more than a family, but the family he has doesn’t want him.

Peyton isn’t a bad kid. She’s not, but neither of them know how to be the good father and daughter pair that everyone seems to think they’re going to be.

He doesn’t think that’s going to change any time soon.

“Pey?” He calls out, but then curses himself when he realizes how late it is. She’s probably sleeping, it’s half past one.

He stumbles into the kitchen and plucks a bottle of Gatorade from the fridge. He rubs his brow as he pads down the hallway. That’s when he notices the faint light coming from her bedroom.

Judging by the light, the TV’s still on, but the volumes muted. He can see the replays of tonight’s game in the reflection of the paintings on the wall. He can see the replay of him striking out with the bases loaded; he’s so caught up in the footage that he almost doesn’t notice the fact that his daughter is wearing a jersey with “Lawson” printed on the back for the first time in what feels like a month.

Smiling to himself, he reaches over to pull the blanket off the top of the couch.   
Unceremoniously, he unfolds it and drapes it over his daughter’s sleeping form as gently as he can.

“Mh…w-what time is it?” Peyton asks, her voice thick with sleep. 

“Oh, uh, shit. Sorry to wake you…” 

“It’s fine,” she says, rubbing her eyes.

“Why’s the TV muted?” He asks as Peyton scratches her head. 

Peyton curls her lips in and looks at her toes. “The commentators were criticizing you,” she says quietly before adding, “Got tired of it after a while.”

“Hey, don’t listen to them,” he says, plopping down on the couch next to her.

“But--”

“Don’t, okay?” He says, wrapping an arm around her. “It’s not worth it.”

Peyton falls asleep on his shoulder not much later.

 

//

 

When Mike wakes up the next morning, he has twenty missed calls and thirty texts. The first one is from Rachel.

Rachel: I tried to stop it. I’m sorry.

Mike’s brow furrows as he scrolls back to Oscar’s message.

Aw, shit.

 

//

 

“I don’t want to make this a thing, Oscar,” he says, tight-lipped and teeth gritted. They had a plan for if the press got wind of Mike’s newfound parentage, but that didn’t mean Mike wanted to authorize it. He doesn’t want his daughter’s name out there—let alone her face—for the public to see. He knows how it’ll go if the Internet thinks she is their property. 

“I know you don’t, Mike. I wish things were different, but unless you want people assuming your daughter is your girlfriend, you need to prepare your statement, because that’s what they’re going to assume,” Oscar says as Mike picks at a blister on his thumb. 

Realizing he won’t get a response from Lawson, he continues.

“I’ll have Rosenthal speak to you tonight,” Oscar says as he sits back down on his desk. “Better to keep the interview it in house, we’ll have more control over the questions that way.”

“Fine,” Mike says, gruffly. 

 

//

 

The interview with Rosenthal is cookie-cutter, nothing he doesn’t expect. The whole reason Oscar called the interview was an attempt to control the narrative regarding his newfound fatherhood, but they hide it in plain sight. Most of the questions are about his baseball career, when he might hang up his cleats, the Padres’ chances of making the playoffs. At the very end there’s an aside that he recently became a father, that—as Rosenthal quips—he has to spend more time hunting down boys than changing diapers since she’s fifteen years old.

After the article is posted, the local media drills him on it. He hoped the trade deadline would keep Peyton’s name out of their heads, but he isn’t that lucky. 

“How has being a single dad challenged you this season?”

Mike scoffs. 

“C’mon, guys. It’s not the 1950s, kids live in single parent households all the time,” he replies, fighting the urge toll his eyes. He can only think of how many single moms are watching this and rolling their eyes, too. He’s a professional athlete with one of the larger, more stable contracts in the league and this guy is acting like he will struggle to make ends’ meet.

The question is more of a comment on his character than anything.

“Has her appearance affected your play? You’re sitting at a .260 batting record,”

Mike doesn’t even try to hide his glare because that journalist isn’t even trying. He expected a few articles from blogs about that, a few idiots on Twitter insinuating that, but he didn’t expect anyone to say that to his face. He could say that he’s fighting for her, that he dedicates each homerun he hits to her, but instead he blows up.

“Seriously? You think that’s appropriate? How about you say that you’re blaming my play to my kid's face?” Mike barks, not holding back.

“Mike…” Jerry, their PR guy, is walking towards the media scrum, but he doesn’t stop.

“She can see this or is your head so far up your ass that you can’t realize that? You’re gonna imply that me winning games is more important than me trying to make sure a kid who's just lost her mom doesn't fall through the cracks?”

 

//

 

“The boys have been off the wall lately so I called Ginny for reinforcements,” Blip says as he grabs his car keys. “Jesus, where is that woman?”

“Ginny?” Peyton asks, raising an eyebrow.

“No, my wife,” Blip says as he tucks his wallet into his pocket. “Honey, let’s go! We’re gonna miss the reservation!” 

“Coming,” Evelyn says as she walks down the stairs. Peyton has no idea how she doesn’t fall flat on her face in those heels.

“We left money for takeout if you guys want to order Japanese food, there’s a menu for a sushi place ten minutes away that does takeout,” Evelyn says as she hugs Peyton. 

 

//

 

“Gabriel didn’t accidently drink my coffee, did he?” Peyton says as she buries her face against the cold marble of the kitchen island. “Christ, those kids are so hyper.”

Ginny laughs. “They’re seven year old boys.”

“Makes me glad I didn’t have siblings growing up,” Peyton mumbles into her elbow. She’s glad she didn’t have siblings growing up, because her and her mother barely made it by as a two-person household.

“By the way, your dad almost punched a journalist in the face today,” Ginny says as she throws the leftover Yakisoba noodles in the microwave. 

“Was it that bad?” Peyton asks. She saw the interview—Alex had sent her a clip with the caption “if looks could kill”—but she didn’t watch it. 

“Just keep your head down,” Ginny says, turning back to face the teenager. “You put all your social media on private?”

Peyton nods.

“You want some?” Ginny asks as she tucks into the noodles. 

“No thanks,” Peyton mumbles, eyes glued on the TV. Ginny put on the Braves-Mets game, but she isn’t paying that close attention. She wonders if Ginny ever gets sick of baseball. She must, especially given the circumstances, Peyton figures. 

“Does it get easier?” Peyton asks after ten minutes of silence.

“Hm?” Ginny replies.

“This,” Peyton says, cocking her to the side. “You know…”

“I can’t remember when it did,” Ginny replies, but not without hesitation. She hates all the questions about her father—after the national media had only learned about her story within the last month, there had been more questions about that than she ever wanted—but this is different. Peyton is in the same boat as she was.

“You know, maybe if just one thing, one thing, had remained the same it would be a little easier,” Peyton mumbles as she crosses her arms. “But it’s not.”

“Peyton…”

Peyton lets out a small laugh. “I’m on the other side of the country, I’m living in a house that’s worth more than my mother probably ever had a hope of making in her damn life and…”

She missed the small hours that creaked and groaned at night. She missed the sound of her mother getting home late after her second job. She missed her comfortably cluttered room. She didn’t want to live in a glass house that her dad bought in the midst of a midlife crisis.

In a moment her entire life had changed. Her mother’s heart had just stopped on her way back from the bus stop. The lawyers and social workers had all been very nice, rubbing her back as she sobbed and promised that they would find someone to take care of her.

“If I had a shortcut, I’d tell you,” she says as she squeezes Peyton’s shoulder.

 

//

 

The ride back to Mike’s house is awkward, to say the least. She’s never had issues talking with Blip before, but this time she feels like she could cut the tension in the air with a knife.

“You know I’ve known your dad for almost four years now,” Blip says before adding, “He’s not a bad guy, Peyton.” 

“I know,” Peyton says, her voice barely above a whisper. 

Blip continues, voice still soft. “He’s happy you’re in his life. You aren’t a burden to him.”

She may not be viewed as a burden, but she knows she is one.

“He’s just not used to being a dad,” Blip says as they exit the highway.

And I don’t know how to be a daughter, Peyton wants to say. At times, it feels like they’re exchanging codes, on how to be a father and a daughter, like they'd read about it in a manual, translated from another language and were doing their best with what they could understand.  
Whether it’s from guilt or frustration, the effort’s been lacking nowadays on both parts.

 

//

 

When she gets home, her dad has fallen asleep on the couch. Passing him by, she decides it’s better to wake him up. His back would be fucked in the morning if she doesn’t and with Duarte being signed, she knew he cannot afford to go on the DL.

“Wake up,” Peyton whispers. Rolling her eyes at herself and why she thought that tone of voice would work, she begins to poke his shoulder.

“Argh,” he mumbles, clearly pained.

“You injured your shoulder now?” Peyton says. “Shit, sorry. Shouldn’t have…”

Mike cuts her off. “Eh, it’s fine, kid. I’m always injured.”

Peyton’s face falls. She knew he didn’t have a ring, but she preferred if her dad was in one piece by the time she left for college.

“Blip’s boys didn’t give you too much trouble?”

Peyton shakes her head. “Nope. Ginny helped.”

Peyton doesn’t catch how Mike’s face lights up with the mention of Ginny’s name. 

“Tell her thanks when you get to the Park tomorrow for me, by the way,” Peyton says as she walks towards her bedroom.

Mike doesn’t ask what for.


	6. Wear It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just as things get better, they get worse.

Peyton watches the Padres fall seven games back of the Wild Card slot with a loss to the Mets. Peyton wonders how her dad can do it—taking L after L when his body is screaming at him to stop. She sees through the fake assurances that he feels better at thirty-six than he did ten years ago, because most of the time it takes her dad an hour to force himself out of bed. Maybe if the Padres were winning it would be worth, as selfish as it makes her sound for saying, but they’re barely hitting .500 in the standings.

The night of Ginny’s Nike launch party, she babysits the twins for Blip and Evelyn. She figures it’s the least she can do with how often Mike tosses her at Evelyn.

“Can we watch the House on Elm Street?”

“Yeah, when you’re my age,” Peyton says, firmly. She lets them get away with some shit, but not that. Those kids would have nightmares for weeks.

“Let’s see what’s on,” she says, diving for the remote. The twins are smushed between Peyton as she flips through channels. Spongebob? Already seen it. Oilers vs. Coyotes? Too incompetent. ESPN? Oh, shit--

“Isn’t that the girl who cheated on your dad?” Marcus asks in the most casual way that only a child could manage.

Peyton almost chokes on her soda. “Huh?”

Marcus shrugs. “That’s what Mom said to Dad.”

Gabriel jumps over to the coffee table from the couch. “That’s what we heard when they were talking at night.”

Peyton feels her heart race. God, she was such an ass. She assumed that he had cheated on her, not the other way around.

“You guys were eavesdropping?” Peyton quips, trying to take her mind off the realization. She just…she assumed athletes were all the same. And all the times she had Rachel’s show on in the background, thinking it didn’t matter. Shit.

Gabriel grins. “No!”

 

//

 

Just as their relationship gets better, it gets worse.

“It’s fine, Blip,” Peyton says as she opens her dad’s door. “He’ll be home soon. Said he’d be by eleven.”

Blip shoves his phone back into his pocket. “You sure?”

Peyton nods. “Probably stuck in traffic. I’m—“

“I know, I know, you’re fifteen,” he says. God, he’s never been more glad for seven year olds than he is now. He’s not looking forward to the teenage years.

 

//

 

As Mike flicks his phone on, he sees an angry “fifteen” popping out of the phone app. Fifteen missed calls. All from Peyton.

“Ah, shit,” Mike groans. 

“What’s wrong?”

“Told Peyton I’d be home by eleven,” Mike mumbles as he rubs his face. “S’ probably worried.”

Rachel straightens up as she glances at the clock. “Want me to drive you?”

“You don’t have to,” Mike says, shaking his head. What was he doing, hobbling to her doorstep and disrupting the life she built without him? She looked happy—happy for the first time in a while.

“It’ll take fifteen minutes for an Uber to come and it doesn’t sound like you have that kind of time.”

The drive is quiet, with Mike trying to force down the bile that’s bubbling in his stomach as the car slugs through LA’s dense traffic.

“Sure as hell don’t miss this hellhole,” Mike mumbles. He wants to say he misses her. That he wants her back so fucking much. That he wants someone to talk to at night, if anything to drown out a daughter that resents him.

“Certainly not the only thing you don’t miss,” Rachel says, eyes drilled on the road ahead of her. Mike can’t help but think that that’s a metaphor for their marriage.

“How is she? By the way?”

“Who?” Mike asks, eyes half way closed. He wanted a nap.

“Your child,” Rachel responds, voice dripping with judgement.

“Oh,” Mike says, blinking. “You would have liked her. She’s a good kid, Rach. Probably better than I deserve,” he says as he picks at a blister he’s nursing. “She deserves a normal life. And my career isn’t going to give that to her.”

“For what it’s worth, I tried to stop it.”

Mike frowns, not knowing what she’s referring to.

“That photo was sent to me first, but I withheld it.”

“You didn’t have to…” Mike starts. This was always the issue that was the elephant in the room in their marriage, would her husband’s status in the MLB give her clubhouse secrets? The same Twitter trolls would shout until their ears bleed that him asking for her hand in marriage dealt her an unfair advantage as a reporter, but it never became an issue in the household. Work was not discussed in their house. Well, Mike thinks, not like we were ever there to discuss it to begin with.

Rachel shrugs. “She’s a kid. She shouldn’t have her face out there. Most European outlets require publications to blur the faces of minors in photos with their parents. Don’t know why this country isn’t the same.”

“Thanks for that,” Mike mumbles. He wants to say more, but he stops himself as he leans his head against the car window.

 

//

 

“I believe this is yours,” Rachel says as she hands her dad over to her, who slumps against her in what Peyton can’t figure out is a hug or the effects of still being too drunk to properly stand.

“Hi, Pey,” he mumbles as he plants a kiss on the top of her head. “Night, Pey.”

Peyton shoots at a glare at Rachel because Mike might be her dad, but she's not responsible for him. Hell, Rachel should be since she is the main reason why he drank himself silly.

“Uh, thanks?” Peyton stammers, looking at Rachel. She looks older than she does on TV, but no one really looks like they do on screen and certainly not at two in the morning.

“I should be going,” she says, awkwardly gesturing to her car.

“Hopefully traffic isn’t bad,” Peyton says. It’s artificial, manufactured. She’s confused as to why she’s even trying to make small talk. Part of her wants to be resentful—this is the woman who cheated on her dad—but considering the fact that she was sure it was the other way around for weeks, maybe she doesn’t have the ability to take the higher ground here. 

 

//

 

Mike wakes up to the sounds of pans banging against the kitchen sink and some British asshole commentating on a soccer game—fucking soccer, he thinks. The sounds and sights are nothing new, but with the splitting headache he has, they’re the last things he wants to hear.

“Life tip: don’t show up at your ex wife’s house during dinner hours while drunk. Chances are her fiance’ll probably be there,” Mike says after he downs two aspirins and a glass of water. “And more importantly, remember to down Advil before you go to bed.”

Peyton raises an eyebrow. Did he really have any room to talk?

“Do as I say, not as I do.”

“Can you see if my tape is in my bag?” Mike asks, ice on his knee. 

Peyton nods. “Sure.”

When she fishes through his bag, her hand snags against a small box. She digs deeper, only to pull out a ring box.

“Oh, that’s, uh, just put it away,” Mike stammers. 

“Uh, here’s your tape,” Peyton says, awkwardly as she lifts the roll of tape off the floor. 

“Thanks,” Mike says. “If you were wondering, that ring’s my ex wife’s. Gonna ask her to, uh…well, like I said before, don’t show up at your ex’s house after drinking,” he says, barely able to finish the sentence.

“My Uber’s gonna be here soon,” Mike says as he disappears into his room. “I left money for lunch on the stove. There’s some yogurt in the fridge if you haven’t had breakfast.”

Peyton doesn’t even mumble a “thanks.” 

He figures he deserves it.


	7. San Francisco

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Did you know about me?" Peyton asks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thre updates in one week (also known as "I-Start-Classes-on-Tuesday-and-Have-to-Get-This-Shit-Done!"). This is a short chapter, mainly situated at the end of the seventh episode. I probably enjoyed writing this one the most (I'm Angst Friend, as Rachel can testify to).
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has commented!

Just as Mike felt like things were getting better, they get worse. Mike suppose that’s just the way life works; that with every win streak, there’s a losing one, but he was hopeful for once only to get spit in the face again. 

Their communication is stripped bare again when Mike is on the road. He considered sending a car for her to come up to San Francisco, but he knows she doesn’t want to see him right now. If he can’t get her to go to a home game, she’s not coming up to San Francisco.

Their communication is shot, but a part of him expects her to be there for him when he gets off the bus.

“Coming to dinner tonight?” Ginny asks as she walks over to Blip’s car.

Mike blinks, pulled out of his trance as his eyes search for his daughter. “Uh, gonna turn in early tonight.

“Just call me if you change your mind,” Ginny calls as he limps over to his car. It falls on deaf ears.

Once he settles into his car, he texts Peyton to say that he’s about to drive home, but he stops himself as he switches his GPS on and set it in the direction of Poway. By the time he arrives at his destination, the courage he built up is gone when he catches sight of the little boy run out to play catch with his grandpa.

This was a mistake. What the fuck is he doing, interrupting some man’s life who already decided he wasn’t worth it?

When he gets home, the sun has set and all he wants is to crawl into bed.

“Hey,” he mumbles in Peyton’s direction as he dumps his backpack down by the door. “How was your…”

Peyton cuts him off. "Did you know about me?"

"Excuse me?" Mike asks. He’s too tired for this.

"Did you know about me?"

"No, n-no. Peyton, I wouldn't do that..." The words feel like vomit as he chokes them out.

"You don't have to lie to me. I always guessed that was the case," his daughter says with a sad, but resigned shrugged. “It’s…it’s fine. You’re not the only who would run when they figure out for the first time they have a kid and you won’t be the last, either.”

That’s it.

"So that’s the kind of man you think I am?" He half-shouts. There's the anger, because that's the last fucking thing he would do to his kid.

Peyton looks taken aback.

Mike doesn't like showing emotion in front of people--especially the lump he feels form in the back of his throat--but he can barely hold it back when his talks to him like that. He'd never do that to his kid after the hell his dad put him through growing up.

"You ever wonder why you don't see your grandparents around, kid? My mom spent more time trying to think of ways she could con money than she could to raise me. And my dad barely fucking acknowledged me even when I got drafted. Always thought that piece of shit would come out of the woodwork when I got drafted. Never happened. Probably better that way, but it shows you how much he cared."

Peyton doesn't say anything, she just looks down at her toes.

"So I'm sorry I don't know how to be a dad. Never really had one,” he huffs out as he leaves to his bedroom.

 

//

 

He texts Ginny that night. 

Mike: My kid hates me.”

Ginny: She doesn’t hate you. 

Mike: She thinks I knew about her before so yeah, pretty sure she hates my guts. Or at least, thinks I’m a deadbeat dad.

He falls asleep before Ginny can reply.

 

//

 

Before he sets off to the Park, he stops by Peyton’s room. If her sleep-rumpled hair that’s poking out of the blankets is any indication, she barely got any sleep last night. He debates waking her up, but judging by how cranky she gets when she doesn’t have enough sleep, he stops himself. Maybe he just isn’t ready to have this conversation. Maybe he isn’t ready to be a dad.

 

//

 

“Hey,” Mike says as he gingerly sits down at the edge of her bed. “Can I talk to you?”

“Looks like you’re going to.”

Mike sighs. “Look, I...I should have never yelled at you like that last night. You didn’t know.”

Peyton shakes her head. “No, Mike,” she lets out a frustrated sigh before continuing. “It was wrong of me to assume that. Especially with what you went through…I just, I was wrong.”

“You had no way of knowing,” he says. “I should have told you. I should have opened up more.”

They sit in silence for a bit, with Peyton picking at a small stain on her comforter. “I just…everyone says I’m freeloading off you, that I faked the paternity test. And the thing is…those aren’t crazy assumptions. I guess…I guess I assumed you thought the same way. Or that you knew from the beginning, because if my mom knew your name, she must have tried to call.”

“Peyton, she didn’t,” Mike says through gritted teeth. He doesn’t know how else he can get through to her.

“I-I believe you,” she mumbles with a shrug. “I just bought into what everyone was saying. That if I wasn’t freeloading, you must have told my mom to fuck off in the first place.”

“I can’t say I wouldn’t have if things were different,” Mike says, averting his gaze to Peyton’s desk. He knows ballplayers who have walked into the Padres clubhouse who have done the same things, choosing to play Russian Roulette with a family court than admit that their groupie’s kid is theirs. “Because I know people who have. Hell, my dad did. He picked his real family over me. Worst part is he said it to my face when my mom and me were struggling.”

“I’m sorry,” Peyton says.

“It’s fine,” he says as he gets up, not without a slow start as his back seizes up. “Get up early, we’ll do brunch tomorrow then ice cream, if you want? I know this place that you’ll like.”

Peyton nods. “Yeah, sure.”

 

//

 

“So do you talk to your mom anymore?”

“No,” Mike says, starring down at his ice cream with the same intensity he does when he’s flashing signs to his pitchers.

Peyton wants to ask why, but she thinks better of it. Better to just leave it like that. 

They sit in silence for a while as Mike continues to devour his ice cream. 

“I have a restraining order against her.” 

“Huh?” Peyton asks through a mouthful of ice cream. She replays his words back in her head, wondering if she heard it wrong. The word “restraining order” seems so out of context it can’t be real. They weren’t still talking about her grandmother, were they? How did they get on this topic?

“My mom,” Mike says as he puts his ice cream cup down. “She, uh…when I got drafted by the Padres they gave me a two million dollar signing bonus. I used it to pay off bills, buy her a place like any son would. I gave her joint-access to the account, at first. Things were fine for the year, and I was getting weekly paychecks that were bigger than her yearly paychecks. When you’re getting that kind of money, even after you grow up with nothing, it loses its luster. I stopped checking the balance of my accounts and I guess she had been withdrawing a grand or two every now and then, but next thing I knew I was out of a quarter of a million.”

“She…”

“I never knew,” Mike says with a shrug. “It’s my own fault, I guess. I should have gotten a financial advisor. I should have thought it was suspicious when she convinced me not to. But I figured why pay someone to watch your money?”

“Mike—“

“She was my mom,” Mike says as he examines a blister on his hand. “I didn’t think she would do that.”

“No one would have—“

“I should have known given the shit she made me do as a kid,” he says. His toe has been digging a hole in the dirt for what feels like the past hour. He can’t look at his kid. He doesn’t want to see the pitiful look on her face.

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles as she stares down at her ice cream that’s sitting in a layer of melted cream. 

“You don’t have to apologize, Pey. I shouldn’t have yelled—“

“No, about your mom,” she finishes. “And your dad. You didn’t deserve that.”

He wants to say that that’s how life is. That people don’t get what they deserve. That no matter how good of a person you are, no matter how hard you work, you don’t get what you want even if you deserve it. Life just kicks you in the ass that way, but he doesn’t have to tell her that. His kid certainly didn’t deserve to lose her mother at such a young age, but here they are. 

There’s no use in telling someone something they’ve already learned through experience.

Mike casually shrugs, but gives her a knowing smile. “Not the first person to grow up with a single mom.”

Peyton’s mom did well. Hell of a lot better than his mom did, that’s for sure.

Peyton bites down on her lip. “I know.”

“You and I turned out okay,” Mike says with a small smile.

They sit in silence, watching the waves roll by until Peyton pipes up.

“Aren’t you mad at her?” Peyton asks, crossing her arms and leaning forward as she tries to make herself smaller. 

“Who? Your mom?”

Peyton nods.

“I was, maybe for a bit, but I can’t be. How can I be mad at her when every single time I’ve gone up to my dad’s house, I’ve bailed each time?”

Mike doesn’t know if she ever attempted to contact him, but he knows the kind of fear that pools in his belly get when he stands outside his father’s house. 

“And honestly, Pey? I can’t think of a worse fucking feeling than being rejected and having to go back and tell your kid that they don’t matter to the person they share half their blood with? Your mom just…she probably didn’t want to risk that.”

Mike looks down at Peyton. He hopes she gets it. She’s young, but she’s also gone through more shit than most people will go through before they reach adulthood. She still looks through the world with a child’s lens, but maybe his words will resignate with her. He hopes she understands that her mom was just trying to protect her from him; from the travel schedule, from the possibility of trades, from the early mornings and long nights when she was too young to understand where her dad just couldn’t stay home and play dress-up with her. 

“Things could have been really different,” he mumbles, not realizing he says it.

“Yeah, guess so.”

“Mike,” she starts. “Could I ask you a question?”

“Course.”

“Was that your dad’s house?” She asks as he pulls into the driveway.

“Huh?”

“When we drove back from that autograph signing, you stopped for coffee and then you stopped outside a guy’s house who you said was your former coach.”

“Yeah,” he says through a sigh. “Yeah, it was.”

“Have you ever confronted him about it?”

Only twelve times in eight years, he wants to say.

Mike shakes his head. “Tried to.”

“And what he say?”

“Never said anything,” Mike shrugs. “I bailed each time.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t want to intrude. He made a choice not to include me in his life. Why start now, Pey?”

“Because he’s your dad.”

Mike scoffs. “That’s generous.”

Peyton opens her mouth to protest, but she doesn’t know if she has room to talk. She wonders if things were different, if her mother never died, would she be standing outside Mike’s glass house only to sprint back to her car each time? If she grew up knowing his name, but never had the balls to say that she was his daughter to his face?


	8. Unmovable Objects and Unstoppable Forces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based off of Unmovable Objects and Unstoppable Forces.
> 
> (Sorry for the delay! The past semester was a hell of a ride for me!)

//

 

“You called?”

Mike watches as his boss smacks down a print of a tweet in front of him. “What’s this?” 

Mike cocks an eyebrow. “One of the few times I actually post on Twitter?”

He watches as his boss—who is barely seven years older than him—frowns. “Mike…I don’t need to explain to you that you’re a representative of this team. You can’t curse people out on Twitter even if it’s on behalf of your daughter.”

“What? Peyton can almost drive. It’s not like she doesn’t know what the F word is.”

“Mike, how do you think this is appropriate?” Oscar says as he leans forward in his chair.

“You don’t think the little kids in the audience haven’t seen their dads give the finger to me or my teammates?”

“I’m not dumb, Mike. I know they do this, but I can’t have my employee representing himself this way. It’s bad press,” Oscar says with an exasperated sigh. The wrinkles on his forehead are becoming more obvious with each loss. 

“And the pieces of shit who are making sexual comments about what my kid looks like online isn’t bad press? I’m just trying to protect her, Oscar. It’s the least I can do. You wouldn’t your girl out there.”

“You know I’m on your side. I’ve worked with PR to keep this under wraps as long as possible.”

“And now that it’s out there, I’m not letting my kid live under a microscope,” Mike says, leaning forward. “That’s not fair to her. She didn’t ask for me to be her dad.”

“How is she by the way?”

Mike glares at Oscar. “You mean my daughter?”

“She grew up in Chicago, didn’t she?”

“Outside of the Cell, not Wrigley,” he replies as he sits back on the couch. Peyton’ll be the first person to tell Oscar that those are starkly different sides of the same coin.

Mike watched as Oscar sat down at the corner of his desk. “But still in the city. That’s the only home she’s ever known.”

Mike frowned. “You trying to use my kid as a bargaining chip?”

“Mike, I’m a dad, too. It’s a genuine question. Would she be happier here or there?”

He doesn’t need to think long about the answer.

“Let me think about it.”

 

//

 

“Has your dad said anything to you?”

“It’s just talk,” Peyton replies as she hoists her bag onto her shoulder. “Mike thinks they’re still in this thing.”

“Would you want him to waive it to go to Chicago? They’re saying the Cubs have interest.”

Peyton shakes her head, almost laughing at the thought. “That’s…that’s not my decision.”

“Look, Mike Lawson wouldn’t leave San Diego unless he had a real shot at a ring… or if you asked him to.”

Pretty sure it’s more about the first, she wants to say.

“Peyton, the Padres are under new management. It’s not a stretch to say that ownership might want to trade your dad for prospects.”

Peyton bites down on her lip. “Do you think teams called first?”

Jose sighs. “I think the Padres shopped him. They wouldn’t put him on waivers if teams called first. Wanted to show teams he was on the chopping block.”

“He wants to win,” he sighs. 

The statement sounds even more ridiculous when the words roll off her tongue. “He’s an athlete—of course he wants to win. He needs to win. He wouldn’t be beating his body into the ground every day if baseball wasn’t all he had.”

“Would you want him to waive it?”

“It’s not like I don’t want to go back, but this is the only home he’s ever known.”

 

//

 

“Dad…”

Nothing.

“Dad, wake up!” Peyton says, poking her sleeping father awake. “Jesus christ, are you hibernating or something?”

“Just because I look like a bear doesn’t mean I am one…” Mike groans as he rubs his temple. The light from her phone gives her a good look at the frown lines that sprawl across his face. Just looking at the photos of him from two years ago, he looks like he’s aged well beyond two years. A decade in The Show will do that you, she figures.

“Well, you were snoring like one,” she huffs. Looking down at her bare feet, she lets out a soft sigh as she stuffs her hands in the pocket of her hoodie. “Didn’t think the couch is great for your back either…”

“Fuck,” he hisses as he sits up. He might be thirty-six, but he feels like his back is pushing sixty. In a way, he’s used to it. He’s been taught to battle through pain since he was a kid, but it feels like he’s running out of reasons to justify it anymore. With each loss, there aren’t many more reasons to convince him to stay in this game other than he feels worthless without it.

“You okay?” Peyton asks him. Out of the corner of her eye, she notices how his phone lights up with a text alert from Ginny.

“Yeah,” he says through gritted teeth. “Should be asking you that. It’s what…like…one? Why are you up?”

Peyton shrugs. “Couldn’t sleep.”

Mike looks down at his hands. He doesn’t need to be fully awake to notice the bags under his daughter’s eyes. “Taco run?”

“It’s almost two in the morning…”

“And I know a place that’s 24 hours. It’ll take fifteen minutes to get there at this hour. Get your shoes on, we’ll make it no time.”

The drive is smooth. It feels like the first night in San Diego where she hasn’t needed to blast the air conditioning on full blast. It’s nice, it doesn’t feel suffocating for once.

“Did you go here a lot as a kid?”

“Well, not as a kid, but as a rookie,” he says as he pops the door open for her. 

“So as a kid,” Peyton says as she ducks under her dad’s arm. One arm has a bag of tacos tucked under it, another with her dad’s sweatshirt. She didn’t think it would be this cold, but then again, they’re only a block away from the coast.

Mike plops down in the car. “Did you get steak or chicken?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Either one is going to make you shit in the morning,” he mumbles with a shrug.

When her friends ask what it’s like having a professional athlete as a father, she usually jokes about the consistency of poop jokes. 

She wasn’t kidding.

Peyton raises an eyebrow, trying to ignore how much like her own mother she sounds like right now. “You gonna eat these in the car?” 

Mike lets out a chuckle. “Peyton, it’s not like our family has standards. God, I thought you’d know that by now.”

She doesn’t look at her dad, but Mike can’t help but notice her smirk over the crinkle of aluminum foil crumbling off their midnight snack.

“That Oscar?” Peyton asks as she sees Mike’s phone light up. “You haven’t gotten traded you, have you?”

Mike clamps down on his lip. “No, uh, just a wrong number.”

Peyton knows he’s lying.

“Look, Pey…that’s, that’s not your job to worry about that.”

“Mike, it’s not like it doesn’t affect me…”

He doesn’t know what sets him off—if it’s how she says “Mike” when they were finally in a place where he felt like she could call him “dad”, or just the pure frustration he sees in her eyes.  
He knows she wants to be back in Chicago, but he doesn’t know how to leave San Diego.

Mike sighs as he crumbles up the foil and tosses it into his cup-holder. “The Cubs called.”

He studies his daughter’s face as her brow furrows, but her eyes soften.

When Al asks him if he ever truly wanted kids, this is the one question he can’t handle.

Mike sighs as he grips the steering wheel a little tighter. “For as long as I could remember, I promised myself that if I ever had a kid…they wouldn’t have a unstable home after the shit I went through. I…I could have given that to you if things were different. I’ve been on this team for thirteen years. Hell, I had a no trade clause for half of that, but this isn’t your home. And I get that. I don’t want you to have to stay here if you don’t want to.”

Peyton bites down on her lip. “So you heard me talking to Jose?”

“No, just a hunch, but what you just said there tells me I was right.”

“L-look, I don’t want to be the reason you leave the Padres.”

“And if that wasn’t a factor?”

“Well, it is,” Peyton says. Mike could hear the frustration in her voice.

Mike shakes his head. He knows how hard it was to be the new kid at every school he bounced around to. “I don’t want this to be weird for you.”

“It already is.”

 

//

 

“Want anything?”

“A bloody would be nice… but we have a day game,” Mike says as he takes a seat. 

He watches as his agent gives him that smirk. “Well, it is supposed to rain.”

“17 rainouts in over forty-six years…yeah, not gonna happen,” he says before flagging down a waiter. “Coffee please.”

“Mike…”  
He knows what this is about. No point in formalities.

Mike gives his agent a curt nod. “I cleared waivers.”

“I know.”

“You know what puts a smile on my face? My no-trade clause, which means I don’t need to go anywhere unless I want to.”

“Which is exactly why Oscar wants to know what you’re thinking.”

“Now just to be clear, you’re on my side.”

“Pick your team.”

Mike shakes his head. “We’re still in this thing.”

“Mathematically,” he says as he leans forward. “You could pick your team, Mike. Boston. Chicago. Playoff teams.”

 

//

 

“My phone says it could be an hour before the rain stops,” Daniella says as she stares down at her phone. Peyton bites down on her lip as she tries to mentally process the fact that a seven year old has a phone and she only got her first one when she hit high school.

“Then you want to go explore?”

 

//

 

There’s a lot of things about San Diego that Peyton doesn’t understand: why it’s so hot all the damn time, why the air is so dry, why they chose to build a stadium so close to the ocean in the event of a potential tsunami, and how no one thought to put signs on the hallways of Petco Park’s suites.

“I want to stop sneaking around.”

She definitely recognizes that voice.

“It’s risky. We’ll be found out,” Peyton hears the man whisper as she scampers back behind the hallway.

“Come on, admit it, it’s sexy,” the woman says. She looks older than most of the women who hang out around the suites. She’s definitely seen her before, but she can’t remember who she’s been hanging off of. That voice certainly wasn’t the voice of a player.

“I have work tomorrow at four in the morning.”

Who works at four? Those people are either baristas or doctors—the latter of which would not be able to afford box seats. The only doctor who would be able to deal with the stupidity of these guys is the one who would hopefully shared their blood--oh, shit. 

“What’s going on?” She hears Daniella ask as she scuttles up behind her.

“Oh, um, wrong way,” Peyton says as she ushers the young girl down the opposite hallway. “Naked baseball players down that way. Turn around.”

Daniella frowns with all the judgement a child can muster. “But they have showers downstairs closer to the clubhouse, why would they…?”

Shit, she was never good at lying. “Then Blip must really like the shower on this floor,” she says as she puts her hand on the small of Daniella’s back. “Let’s go!”

 

//

 

Her father is pulled during the rain delay. Ginny barely makes it out, but Peyton can’t focus on the game when she knows her father is going to be in a worse mood than usual. 

The decision makes her trot down to his locker once all of the others have filed out.

She wants to talk about what happened  
without opening the wound, but she doesn’t know how to do it. Some things are just better left unsaid.

“Can I come in?” Mike hears Peyton ask.

He shrugs. Clubhouse rules state that girls aren’t allowed in the clubhouse, but Ginny dashed that a long time ago. Tradition doesn’t mean anything anymore. Hell, his word barely does.

“You okay?” Mike hears his daughter whisper as she tugs lightly at his sleeve. 

“M’ fine, Pey,” he mumbles, but his gaze doesn’t meet her eyes. She watches as he runs a hand down his beard, knees creaking as he stands up.

Peyton tilts her head. “You sure?” 

“It is what it is…let’s ship out,” he says as he reaches for his bag. He doesn’t mumble the words without hesitation. He wants to say “let’s go home” but his daughter would never consider that glass house a home. He barely can bring himself to do it.

“How was your day?” He asks. It’s a standard, but also an odd question in their relationship. The normal arsenal of “how was work?” doesn’t work when your dad’s work is broadcasted to you and countless of thousands of people. 

Peyton shrugs. “It was fine.”

“We can order pizza when we get back,” Mike says as he bends down to pick up his bag.

“I got it,” Peyton says as she picks up his backpack. “Don’t want you messing up your back.”

Mike begins to protest, but he keeps quiet as she hikes his old grey monster that he calls a backpack on top of her shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading and thanks so much for everyone's patience!


	9. Scratched

“Mr. Lawson, I have Ted Copland for you,” the woman says.

It’s gone through.

“Put him through,” Mike says, voice terse as he hears his knees crack as he stands up. He can’t have the team hear him have this conversation. Not here. Not now.

“Mike, it’s Ted Copland.”

If Mike’s heart wasn’t in his throat he’d roll his eyes at that comment. It’s not Copland hasn’t been the talking head of that organization for the past five years.

“Mike, I just got one question for you…what’s your ring size?”

 

//

 

“The funny thing about sports is that we have to suspend our belief that these players are human. With their own lives, own motivation. We put them in a bubble and tell them to win at all cost, but then when one of them wants to leave to win and succeed at the one thing he’s programmed to do, we’re shocked and hurt as if we own them.”

Almost done?

Almost. Got two more drawyers.

See ya soon.

“You…you coming to the game today?” Mike asks as he props her bedroom door open with his hip. 

Peyton blinks because this shouldn’t even be a question, but the fact that she only started showing up at the Park a half of the way through the season forces the words out of her father.

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” she says as she stands up from her spot on the floor, tucked between a pile of her own clothes and bedsheets. 

“So this is your last game?”

Mike nods as he shoves his hands into his pockets.

She doesn’t know what to say—good luck? They’re playing the first-place Dodgers, they’ll need it. 

Mike nods. “They’re closer than I thought.”

She looks at her father and can’t help but realize how uncomfortable he looks. And dog tired. And old. As the daughter of someone who was only a few months out of having the “teenage father” label thrown onto him, she has never thought of her dad as old, but the thick lines on his face and bags under his eyes seem more prominent than when she first met him.

She can’t help but think it’s her fault.

“Evelyn’ll pick you up in two hours,” he says with a little smile. It doesn’t feel genuine, but the amount of uncertainty 

 

//

 

She wants to laugh at the people who call sports a metaphor for life. There’s nothing normal about any of this. Having her father’s bad days at “work” broadcasted for thousands to see. Having strangers do a doubletake every time they think that Mike Lawson has walked by—most of them don’t say anything to them, but she knows recognition when she sees it. 

“He’s hitting,” she hears Elliot say as she finishes firing off a text to Jose.

Even though she feels her heart jump into her throat and her legs feel all of a suddenly too heavy to walk, she makes her way over to the suite’s railing. 

 

//

 

Sports are all about storybook endings—so much so that she thinks they dehumanize the athletes that star in them even more—but those rarely happen. Her father told her that baseball is a sport of failure. Good hitters fail seven out of ten times, you have to fail to have a hope of winning in the future.

If there’s one thing that this year should have taught her, it’s that life isn’t a fairy tale. Sports don’t serve up happy endings. Players aren’t plot-points in a grander narrative no matter what the media says. 

So she shouldn’t be shocked when her father strikes out, but she is.

 

//

 

“That third strike was definitely outside.”

Mike shakes his head and all of a sudden his shoulders feel heavier than they were in the morning. “I’m sorry your poster boy let you down.”

“You’re gonna kill it in Chicago.”

There’s no reason to lie anymore. “You know it. Where you off to?”

He wants to invite her to his place, but he knows it won’t end well.

“I have something to do. If you want to go out for a drink later...”

Mike sighs. He knows he can’t do this. “Nah, I’m going home. Gotta pack.”

 

//

 

“Your dad’s still inside, kid,” she hears as a heavy hand falls on her shoulder. Slightly startled, she plucks out her headphones to look at the older man. 

“Oh…okay. Thanks,” she replies as she coils her headphones around her phone. “They’re…they’re not angry at you for letting my dad hit, is she?” 

“Oscar always has a stick up his ass. Don’t worry about it. I wasn’t not going to let Mike Lawson pinch hit in a one-run game, kiddo,” Al says. “Good luck to your dad in Chicago. Don’t let him get fat off deep dish, okay?”

She cracks a smile. “I’ll try my best.”

 

//

 

“You could have said bye to everyone. You could have said it was about Peyton.”

“It is about her,” he snaps, but there’s something knowing at the back of his head that that’s not the only reason.

“And everyone would have understood that. We have families, Mike. I know this year has been hard for you—with Rachel, with Peyton—but that doesn’t give you a reason to shut everybody out like this.”

Mike bites down on his lip, because Blip doesn’t get it. He’s been going home after the last regular season game for the last five years, but Mike has tasted loss a hell of a lot more than him. He needs a ring and San Diego isn’t going to give it to him. It’s not going to give his kid a sense of comfort, a sense of a home and Mike made a promise to himself that any child of his would never feel that sense of instability.

“Look, when it’s your time to leave, you can do things differently.”

Blip sighs. “I hope you stay, Mike, but if you don’t, I’ll do exactly that.”

It’s not the ending he thought he’d get.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While this is modeled after the ninth episode, Mike and Ginny's date-thing (I mean, it was a date) will be featured in the next chapter. This chapter was mostly from Peyton's point of view so the next one will be mostly from Mike's and I promise that one will be much longer. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	10. Don't Say It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads-up: This definitely is a departure from what happens in the last episode with some grounded in reality. the ending's different--let's say that.
> 
> Enjoy!

“You could have said bye to everyone. You could have said it was about Peyton.”

“It is about her,” he snaps, but there’s something knowing at the back of his head that that’s not the only reason.

“And everyone would have understood that. We have families, Mike. I know this year has been hard for you—with Rachel, with Peyton—but that doesn’t give you a reason to shut everybody out like this.”

Mike bites down on his lip, because Blip doesn’t get it. He’s been going home after the last regular season game for the last five years, but Mike has tasted loss a hell of a lot more than him. He needs a ring and San Diego isn’t going to give it to him. It’s not going to give his kid a sense of comfort, a sense of a home and Mike made a promise to himself that any child of his would never feel that sense of instability.

“Look, when it’s your time to leave, you can do things differently.”

Blip sighs. “I hope you stay, Mike, but if you don’t, I’ll do exactly that.”

It’s not the welcome back he thought he’d get.

 

//

 

Mike might be perpetually reckless or an occasional asshole—well, most of the time he’s an asshole--but he’s learned to be patient throughout his career in The Show. He runs his laps, catches the ball; each more feeling like a cinderblock that slams into his glove. It feels nice in a way…it’s refreshing from the hell of a night he’s had. He tries not to take it too personally when Ginny chooses Blip over him as his partner for cool down stretches, but the fucking last person he wants to see Ginny with is Rachel. But knowing his luck as of late, he shouldn’t have been as shocked as he is when he spots them.

“How mad is she at you?” Rachel asks once Ginny and her have parted ways. Her voice barely registers until their eyes meet. He feels his face go pale; he doesn’t know if she’s referring to Ginny or Peyton. “Did the trade implode because you hit?”

Mike just shrugs at his ex-wife. “You know how these things go.”

“Is she coming to the game today?” Rachel asks.

“She’s in Chicago for Labor Day. Wanted to see her friends before she goes back to school. You’d like her. She’s a good kid,” he says, but instantly regrets it. They aren’t together anymore and the alimony check Mike sent last week sure as hell proves it. 

“I’m sure.”

“I’m glad we can be like this. I just want us to be normal. And if David makes you happy…”

“We broke up.”

“Hm?”

“A few weeks ago.”

“Um... okay, well, I, um, I should go start my edit.”

Mike gives her a nod as they go their separate ways.

 

//

 

“Ah. You're, uh, you're heading off?” 

“Yeah. You want something?” 

“No, no, no, I don't want to keep you.”

“Beer?” 

“Sure.” 

“Al, I think I lost the team. The way I handled leaving. Okaying the trade to the Cubs. Even Blip is pissed at me.”

“Yeah, you kind of kicked the hell out of that one. But you'll get 'em back. Especially Blip.”

“I don't know. I'm very good at ruining a good thing. Everything can be going along smoothly, and then I manage to do the wrong thing or... not say the right thing.” 

Al raises his beer at his catcher with an all-knowing smirk. “Well, you're a curmudgeoney, moody, cranky son of a bitch.”

Mike grins. “Thank you. I learned from the best.”

“But you got a marshmallow center…Peyton will come around, Mike. You two aren’t too different. When you’re about to leave a place you get a stange feeling. You realize you’ll not only miss the people you love but you’ll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you’ll never be the same way again. That’s a hard feeling for anyone—let alone a teenager to understand.”

“At least she’s talking to me—didn’t know if she would,” he mumbles as he laces up his shoes. Unlike Ginny, he wants to say. 

Al lets out a soft smile. “Well, Peyton is a teenager. And she’s old enough to understand. These trades fall through more often than they go through.”

Peyton’s old enough to understand a lot of things. She’s old enough to understand that her father never viewed her mother as anything more than a one-night stand. Old enough to understand that her dad doesn’t have much going for him other than the fact that he can hit a ball seventy percent of the time. Old enough to get the fact that she always would have been better off with her mother, but that life didn’t shake out that way.

Mike thinks in some ways he’s just thrown more uncertainty onto her plate. She spent the last three months preparing to start school in San Diego, and he led her to believe she’d be back home. 

“I know one thing, Mike,” Al says, shaking Mike out of his thoughts. “You didn't want to leave us; you wanted to stay. Cubs, they were like the new girl... the one makes you laugh and... feel young. And she distracted you from what you really wanted. You went there in a moment of weakness. But this is where your heart is. You came back. That's all that really matters.”

Mike doesn’t feel like that will matter in the long run at all.

“Besides, the Cubs'll never win it.”

Mike drinks to that. At least he has one thing going for him.

 

//

 

Mike doesn’t know why he ended up in Rachel’s bed that night. He thinks back to Al’s words as he feels each stretch flatten out a kink in his back. 

“Did I screw things up for you? By coming over that night?” Mike asks Rachel once the coffee is downed and they’re somewhat ready to have this conversation. Very rarely would Mike use the word “ready” and his own name in a sentence that wasn’t related to baseball, but strangers things have happened to him this past year.

“No. But you did get me thinking. I just... I finally had to face the fact that I really, really liked him. I just didn't love him.”

“I'm sorry,” Mike manages to mumble, but they both know it’s bullshit.

“Thanks,” she says with a slight smile. She could always see right through him.

Mike raises his eyebrows. “For lying about being sorry?” 

Mike sighs as he heaves himself off the bed. “I got to get to the park. Oh, and just for the record, I'm not bailing on you. I'm not making a run for it because I got you last night. There's actually a previously scheduled Major League Baseball game that everyone knows about.”

“Duly noted.” 

“I could leave a ticket for you if you want.”

“I have a press pass.”

“I could leave a ticket for you, anyway,” he says, fiddling with his flannel’s cuff. All of a sudden it feels like they’re going back to when Mike was a rookie and she was an intern at a local news station in San Diego. When Rachel was determined and Mike was falling over his feet trying to talk to the new beat reporter. It was never supposed to work between them, but they managed to make it happen.

“Yeah. Um... I don't know if that's such a good idea,” she says as she tucks her hair behind her ear. 

“I-I got to get back to L.A,” she continues.

Mike eyes dart to the floor. “I need to pick up Peyton at the airport.”

 

//

 

He still leaves the tickets at her hotel room door.

 

//

 

Jose: I dont understand why they scratched her. shed only have three 3 starts left. she doesnt play for the Mets, shes not gonna blow out her arm. 

Me: do you think I’d be able to use telling Daniella about Oscar and Al’s daughter dating as a bribe for Oscar to let me into the Padres suite?

Jose: do you want your dad to get traded?

Me: well yeah…

Jose: okay not my best phrasing… whats wrong?

Me: Rachel Patrick is sitting in my dads seats.

Jose: Why????

Me: b/c she lost her press pass and asked my dad for a favor dipshit.

She never claimed her best friend was smart.

Jose: So theyre back together?

Me: I don’t know 

She doesn’t know what comes over her, but she turns around and hands her ticket to the nearest pre-teen girl she sees. 

 

//

 

In a way, Mike thinks sports are a metaphor for life. Kids play sports to teach them the value of teamwork, hardwork, but that doesn’t get you very far in sports. Hell, that doesn’t get you very far in life. It’s a bullshit lesson, but he figures most of the stuff people tell children is bullshit in general.

As he rushes out for the catch, he thinks about Ginny. If anyone deserves this game, it’s her. She works harder than everyone on the team, but she gets more bullshit from the media than anyone.

When his knee gives out, he doesn’t hear it pop. He can only hear the crowd gasp.

 

//

 

“Why am I such a fucking idiot?” 

“Because you’re friends with me?” Jose replies. He can hear her snort even from the crowd of people watching with her at the patio of a local tavern she’s pushed her way into.

“I can’t believe she’s pitching a no—“

“Don’t say it!” Jose snaps.

Peyton wouldn’t believe half of the things that have happened to her in the past few months, but here she is. Part of her thinks it’s karma that she traded away tickets to a potential no-hitter in exchange for the chance to avoid Rachel.

“Did I seriously give away tickets to this?”

“You gave away tickets to this?” One of the guys on the patio asks. He has an expression on his face that makes her think she said she murdered her firstborn, not that she gave away tickets.

“To a kid,” she says, judgment just as apparent on her own face. “With cancer.”

“God, you’re bad at lying,” Jose says on the other line.

 

//

 

When Mike’s knee shatters, Peyton can only hear her phone screen crack. She doesn’t hear the crowd gasp, her dad cry out, or the announcers go silent. The tension in the restaurant is so thick she feels like she needs to be anywhere but there.

 

//

 

When she gets to the hospital, she realizes that the seat she was in easily would have been within earshot of hearing her father scream in pain when he went down.

She’s seen the replay of the injury enough to put bits and pieces together. The stretchers that they needed to get him off the field says enough. He’s done. 

She doesn’t know how to have that conversation with him—hell, he probably doesn’t even know how to have that conversation with himself beyond what the x-rays of a shattered kneecap say.

She sees Rachel get into a cab as the door closes behind Peyton, but before she can find the courage to muster out an explanation as to why she bailed on the game, the Padres’ team doctor finds her. By the time Ed manages to get her in through a back door, Mike’s waiting in a consultation room. 

“Did she get her no-hitter?” Mike asks. His leg is wrapped and swollen, but his eyes are trained on his hands.

Peyton can’t figure out a way she can scrape together a lie. “No.”

There’s no script for this. 

“I caught the damn ball, it wasn’t an error on that play,” she hears Mike grumble. She shouldn’t be surprised.

“Has any of the team dropped by?” She asks. It’s the first thing that comes to mind, and quite frankly, she’d do anything to fill the silence right now, but she immediately regrets it. The last thing Mike wants to think about is baseball.

“Al came by earlier,” he says, picking at a hangnail. “Rachel, too.”

Peyton nods as she shoves her hands into her pockets.

“You feeling okay? Rachel said you left the game before it started.”

She shrugs as her eyes dart to the floor.

“Did Ed tell you?”

Peyton bites down on her lip as she nods. 

She wants to ask if he’s okay, but even the idea of that makes her feel like an even worse daughter than she already feels like.

“Yeah,” he says, taking a long breath that sounds much more unstable than she knows he intends it to be. “I’m done.”

“I know,” she says. That’s all she can say.

“Guess I’ll be able to drive you to school and embarrass you in front of boys more than I initially planned,” he jokes. She knows by now that her dad uses sarcasm as a defense mechanism, especially when he doesn’t know what to say. It’s rehearsed, it’s perfect, but never genuine. 

She lowers herself down on the small, rigid hospital chair. Mike sinks further down the hospital bed as he fiddles with the IV in his arm. 

“I’m sorry for being so bad at this.”

Mike frowns. “What are you talking about?”

“For being so shitty at being a daughter.”

“Peyton, don’t say that…”

“I didn’t come to Opening Day, the All-Star Game, fuck, I didn’t even go to your…”

“You don’t have to say it, Peyton,” he says, but the moment he says it his chest feels too heavy. He doesn’t even want to say “last game” himself out of fear that it’ll all become too real.

They let the silence settle until Peyton hears a knock on the door. Peyton stops and cranes her neck to see a familiar rush of black curls.

“How’d you get past security, Baker?” Mike asks, half-jokingly and half out of confusion.

“Thought I’d stop by,” she says and Peyton can’t help but notice it sounds rehearsed. 

“Al’s waiting for you in the hallway, Peyton,” Ginny says as she cocks her head towards the door, before turning to Mike. “Al says he has no problem taking her tonight.”

Mike nods. His daughter has spent enough time in hospitals this year to last a lifetime. This is the last place he wants her to be. It comes as no shock when Peyton doesn’t waste any time collecting her things and making her way out the door.

“I’m sorry for fucking everything up,” he mumbles once the door shuts.

“Mike, you didn’t…the ref blew the call on the play,” She starts, voice a hell of a lot smaller than he’s used to hearing.

“I’m not talking about the damn game, Baker,” He says through gritted teeth. He can feel his blood pressure go up, his pulse thudding in his ear. “You’re right. We’re teammates and this was always going to be a shit-show from the start, but hey, we sure as hell won’t be teammates anymore after this so you don’t need to worry. Problem solved, okay?” 

“Mike, I know you’re mad, but I…”

“What? Gonna try to tell me that you being shut down is the same as this? You have your pitches, you have your starts, you have spring training next season, and I have nothing.”

She doesn’t respond through what feels like hours. She just sits and stares at her shoes, thinking, thinking. She goes over and over his words in her head, willing her mind to focus on the mission and not—

“I don’t know what to do without baseball, Ginny.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all for now, folks! I am planning on doing a follow-up piece that is the same length as this one. The timeline would follow at some of the things the producers hinted at during interviews about a season two. If you have any suggestions as to what you want me to include, feel free to leave a comment below.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
